North America Business Continuity Awareness Week Resources for the week can be found on all Business Continuity Awareness Week partner websites, including: Various endorsement statements have been made including the following: Paul L. Striedl ACP CEO/chairman As the Chairman and CEO of the Association of Contingency Planners (ACP), I wholeheartedly endorse the Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) efforts, which will take place September 18-24 2005. For those involved in business continuity planning, BCAW is the “Super Bowl” of awareness opportunities for our profession. This is the ideal forum to educate your organizations on the importance of business continuity planning by sharing experiences, knowledge, and best practices. In order to prepare for this effort, the BCAW organizers have prepared an exceptional package of materials, which includes tip sheets, promotional posters, best practices, and may other tools to assist practitioners in promoting BCP awareness and education. BCAW is an important initiative for ACP. As the premier organization bringing together and advancing the cause of contingency planners, business continuity professionals and emergency managers, ACP is ardent about providing top notch resources, excellent networking and information exchange experiences, and nonpareil opportunities to reset the bar in disaster preparation, response, recovery, resumption and restoration. BCAW provides ACP members with a pointed opportunity flex professional muscle through their organizations by utilizing this knowledge and experience, which will continue to solidify and expand the core of our industry. I would like to extend my thanks to the volunteers and partner organizations for donating their time, energy and effort in organizing this initiative. As Chairman of the Business Continuity Institute I whole-heartedly support BCAW2005 in North America. BCAW2005 provides an exceptional opportunity to raise the awareness levels, within organisations right across the North America, of the advantages to be gained from having a robust business continuity management capability. The world in which we live today has arguably become riskier alongside the greater impact of not being able to keep your organisation open for business. While organisations such as the Business Continuity Institute champion the cause on a worldwide basis through it’s work with government committees, universities and other such organisations, it is through its two thousand members that the most effective shift in thinking and approach to the concept of business continuity management can be achieved. BCAW2005 gives us, as a profession, a full week of concentrated effort to change the hearts and minds of those decision-makers who could, should they so wish, make it happen. I believe a positive approach to changing those hearts and minds is the key to success. Business continuity should be demonstrated as a positive and beneficial addition to any organisation’s risk management capability and not sold on the basis of merely addressing the negatives such as “It’s only a matter of time before……… etc.” I also ask that you extend your target audience beyond that of the ‘big player’ organisations and senior executives. Go for the masse i.e. the small and medium enterprises as well as grass roots, shop floor employees. There is an awful lot to be said for upward pressure on the need for a common sense approach to preparing for the effects of a major interruption to your mission critical processes. Please remember that the BCI has a wealth of information and extensive networks of experts worldwide so do contact us if we can help in any way. I wish you every success in your endeavours for BCAW2005 and beyond. The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) is again pleased to support Business Continuity Awareness Week. We laud this annual event because it’s a focused opportunity to share our knowledge and commitment with others who may just be discovering the enormous benefits of business continuity planning (BCP). We’re always looking for catalysts to help “raise the bar” in business continuity and other sectors of the emergency management community. Our annual World Conference on Disaster Management continues to feature a significant part of its program on BCP and Emergency Management working together. And we’ve just introduced a quarterly magazine, Emergency Management Canada, which addresses BCP matters in each issue. BCA Week is a great opportunity for all of us to showcase our Business Continuity Programs and to highlight the need to regularly build on it. It’s also a perfect time to tell others about websites and other resources to help them get started or expand their knowledge. We encourage everyone to make the most of it. DRI International is a sponsor of the next Global Business Continuity Awareness Week scheduled for September 18-24, 2005. This is an international initiative to promote the importance of business continuity in the business community and beyond. It is also a clear indication that our profession is increasingly recognized around the world for the role it plays in protecting businesses and other organizations. In March of last year, DRI International supported Global Business Continuity Awareness Week 2004 by generating a citation from the U.S. Congress recognizing the week and holding a press conference in New York City. The purpose of that major press conference was to emphasize how business continuity planning professional practices, training, and certification are helping to protect organizations around the world from disasters and business interruptions. It also underscored how critical business continuity planning is to national security because of the role it plays in keeping the nation’s businesses operational. We are proud to have helped raise the national awareness of business continuity planning among our national leaders, the media, and the business community. But as important as national awareness is, Business Continuity Awareness Week is also a grassroots initiative. We have heard from quite a few certified business continuity professionals about the projects they ran at their own companies to help spread the word about why business continuity planning is critical. For you, the practitioner, this week represents an opportunity to re-emphasize why proper planning is critical to overall risk management. We want to provide you with the opportunity to promote Global Business Continuity Awareness Week 2005. Please consult the Global Business Continuity Awareness Week Tool Kit and other documents below for a list of suggested activities that you can undertake to raise awareness and educate your colleagues. This will provide you with additional means to convey the importance of business continuity within your company, industry, and community, as well as your local media and your industry trade press. We will also be counting on you to keep us informed of your accomplishments so we can share your successful initiatives with the rest of the business continuity profession. Last year’s highly successful efforts have set the stage for even more activities in celebration of Global Business Continuity Awareness Week 2005 as we again have an opportunity to promote our profession on a local, national, and global scale. As the President of the Disaster Recovery Information Exchange (DRIE) Toronto chapter, I fully support the Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW), which is taking place on September 18th through the 24th. We no longer live in a time when the biggest challenge an organization could face was a fire, hurricane or earthquake. Because our environment is changing constantly it is vital that our business continuity capabilities keep up and the best way to accomplish this is through our knowledge of our specific industries/organizations. This is why DRIE is proud to be an active member of the BCAW organization. Along with several organizations, we have come together to develop a package to promote business continuity and to gain the support of various industries, organizations, public authorities and all levels of government. DRIE feels this is such an important initiative that we have made the BCAW documents available to everyone, members and non-members via our website; www.drie.org/toronto KNOWLEDGE is POWER…KNOWLEDGE of a strong business continuity program is PROTECTION. I challenge all DRIE members and business continuity professionals to use this week in September to expand your organization’s knowledge of business continuity. And why stop there; why not share your KNOWLEDGE with a business partner, vendor or acquaintance on the need for a business continuity program in their organization. Mark September 18th to 24th on your calendar and start planning now on how you might promote Business Continuity. Want to share how you promoted BCAW, send your story to bcaw2006@yahoo.ca by October 15th and it will appear in the December issue of the DRIE Digest. I wish you all a productive and successful Business Continuity Awareness Week!
•Date: 16th September 2005 • Region: N.America • Type:
Article •Topic: BC general |
