The Business Continuity Institute, through the BCI Partnership, campaigns to ensure that Business Continuity Management (BCM) is viewed and adopted as a key management discipline in private, public and not-for-profit sectors.

While sectors subject to legislative and regulatory forces have chosen BCM as the preferred framework to meet requirements for resilience, beyond these sectors adoption of BCM can vary significantly.

The campaigning activities of the BCI Partnership seek therefore to influence key internal and external stakeholders, as well as make information directly available to organisations to encourage adoption of BCM thinking and practices in a pragmatic, coherent manner working with the grain of the organisation.  The BCI works with government, academia, institutes and associations in adjacent disciplines, as well as provides regular contributions to the media on topical issues of interest to senior executives.

The three primary benefits of adopting good BCM practice are defined as:

• Competitive advantage through operational resilience
• Protection of reputation and value in a crisis
• Transparent corporate governance and risk oversight

Example campaigning activities include:

Supply Chain Resilience

• The BCI has achieved significant external media coverage and led the international debate on supply chain continuity with 2009 and 2010 surveys on supply chain resilience, kindly sponsored by BCI Partnership member, Zurich.
• The BCI set up a task force with the UK’s Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply to generate practical advice for procurement professionals in bringing BCM thinking into existing supply chain management processes.
• The BCI has run a series of workshops around the world on BCM in the supply chain and has an active working group focused on developing the thinking in this critical area.

BCM & the Boardroom

• The BCI published a discussion paper Risk Management is Dead, Long Live Risk Management, which has been widely downloaded.  The content of which formed part of the BCI’s submission to the OECD in its consultation on updating its Corporate Governance principles.
• The BCI supported by Deloitte ran a major survey of over 600 organisations in 2011 to understand board room attitudes to BCM and document methods to improve engagement and sustain interest.

Other campaigning activities include:

• A dedicated resource was developed to support organisations wanting to know more about pandemic planning in 2009.
• Expert roundtables were organised on the subject of IT Risk Management and the Cyber Threat in 2011.
• The Business Case for BCM was published in 2010 and provided evidence of the areas where BCM could provide tangible value to organisations.
• Business Interruption Insurance & BCM was a sector-wide initiative involving insurers, brokers, loss adjusters, insurance buyers and BCM experts working together to generate a better understanding of the value of BCM to insurers and what organisations needed to do get recognition of their BCM programmes in the price and terms of cover.
• In the UK, the BCI organised briefings of UK parliamentarians, secured discussion of BCM in both Houses of Parliament and successfully lobbied both Coalition parties prior to the General Election in 2010.
• Organisation of the global-level Business Continuity Awareness Week in 2009, 2010 and 2011, which harnesses the collective skills and experiences of the BCM community to reach out to those looking to learn more about BCM.