Business Continuity

Every organisation needs to ensure that the impact of the unexpected is minimised. Those who are least prepared are the most likely to be unable to survive a disaster. Kingston Smith Consulting can help you to fully understand how business continuity management and its related disciplines apply to your organisation and complement a broader risk management framework. We can provide guidance and assistance with your continuity requirements and help you mitigate the risks impacting critical business functions, technology, resources and infrastructure. This will put you in the best position possible should the worst happen, and assist in preserving your profitability, competitive advantage and reputation.

Operational Resilience Review – The overall assessment of business continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency operations. Kingston Smith Consulting can identify potential impacts that threaten an organisation, and provide a framework for building resilience and the capability for an effective response. We can assist with an organisation’s accreditation with BS25999.

We can also perform or review the following individual components of the BCM programme:

Business Impact Analysis – Identifying the business processes deemed critical to the client’s ongoing success in the event of a disaster or long-term business interruption and highlighting the impacts the business would face.

Risk Analysis – Used in conjunction with the business impact analysis, this allows an organisation to arrive at an informed business continuity strategy.

Business Continuity Strategy – As a result of the business impact and risk analyses, the various continuity options are considered and an overall strategy defined.

Business Continuity Planning – The design of a detailed plan or set of plans for invocation in the event of a disaster.

Continuity Testing – Regular testing of continuity plans, using a variety of methods, as an essential component of business continuity management. Kingston Smith Consulting can draw up a testing strategy, or provide an independent view on the effectiveness of a single test or entire programme of testing.

Continuity Training – Training of relevant personnel in their roles. This can also be tailored to form part of security awareness training for all staff.

Data Storage and Backup Architecture – Development of a plan and/or testing the adequacy of the data backup and storage architecture. We can determine if the plan/architecture will meet the recovery expectations of the business. If not, Kingston Smith Consulting can recommend a backup frequency, method, storage devices, and locations of the backup media.

Manage External Dependencies – Assessment of the contractual agreements (eg service level agreements) with internal and external parties on whom critical processes depend.