Business Continuity Maturity Model® Addresses BC Standards

Budd Lake, NJ (PRWEB) March 17, 2011

There are many types of disruptions that can occur to impact an organizations' ability to continue providing their products and services. Having a program in place that provides a structure to follow in order to restore that ability is critical. The BCMM® not only establishes and describes those organizational resiliency program components; it also provides a method for continuous improvement to strengthen the program.

According to the Institute for Business and Home Safety approximately one-fourth of all businesses that have operations suspended due to a disruption never reopen. Over the past 10 years there has been increased attention given to the importance of organizational resiliency and recovery capability for communities they support. This attention has led to the creation of several standards being published and recognized by the Department of Homeland Security for PS-Prep.

"We believe that for U.S.-based organizations, the BCMM® enables them, regardless of size or industry, to prepare for PS-Prep certification and strengthen their BC program. For those outside the U.S., the BCMM® has a strong following. This latest version provides the flexibility to be used with international BC standards in a similar manner" stated Scott Ream, president of Virtual Corporation. Also available is a crosswalk to the three standards recognized by PS-Prep; BS25999, ASIS SPC.1-2009, and NFPA 1600, making the BCMM® an invaluable tool for any organization preparing for PS-Prep certification.

The open access BCMM® is composed of eight organizational characteristics, or corporate competencies. Within those competencies are over 270 measurement criteria to be used to quantify BC program. Included are the four pillars of any business continuity program: Incident Management, Security Management, Technology Recovery, and Business Recovery. The BCMM® is provided at no charge through Virtual's website, http://virtual-corp.net.

Originally published in 2003, Virtual Corporation's BCMM® has been accessed by individuals in over 50 countries to assess their Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Program. By incorporating a means to factor industry standards and regulations into assessments, organizations can now use the open access BCMM® to prepare for audits or certifications including PS-Prep, or can hire a trained BCMM® assessor to use the web-based software to assess and benchmark their program. The web-based tool also enables Virtual to collect benchmarking data from trained assessors by country, industry and size of organization so organizations can have a reference comparison to understand how effective their program is as compared to similar organizations.    

In addition to the open access Model, Virtual's training partner, The ICOR, http://www.theicor.org, conducts 2-day training classes globally in the methodology of performing both review and audit level assessments using the web-based BCMM® assessment questionnaire. Companies can train their internal business continuity or audit professionals or engage an external consultant to perform an independent assessment. Assessment results and scoring can be used for investment, insurance, certification preparations, and other financial and risk management decisions.

The BCMM® has been used by organizations in varied industries, including hospitals, financial institutions, government agencies and retail. By providing it at no cost Virtual hopes that every organization, regardless of size or location, can put measures in place to ensure that they can stay in business after the disruptive event is over. In addition, this update provides an effective means to not only strengthen BC program, but to also take the initial steps toward certification to other standards. The open access BCMM® and additional information and documentation are available on Virtual's website. Business Continuity Maturity Model® and BCMM® are registered trademarks of Virtual Corporation.

About Virtual Corporation

Virtual Corporation is a software and consulting services company that assists organizations to implement sustainable business continuity (BC) programs. Virtual Corporation's software solution, Sustainable Planner®, empowers managers to implement a sustainable process to build, update and maintain their own business continuity plans allowing business continuity professionals time to analyze exposure, enhance preparedness, and consult with business. Virtual provides a variety of Business Continuity services including: Business Impact Analysis, Hazard Vulnerability Analysis, Supply Chain Risk and Resiliency Assessments, Enterprise Business Continuity Program Design and Implementation, Business Continuity Maturity Model® Assessments and BC/DR Exercise Facilitation.

For more information contact Margaret Langsett, mlangsett(at)virtual-corp(dot)net, 973-426-1444

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