The Definitive Handbook of Business Continuity Management

With a pedigree going back over ten years, The Definitive Handbook of Business Continuity Management can rightly claim to be a classic guide to business risk management and contingency planning, with a style that makes it accessible to all business managers. Some of the original underlying principles remain the same – but much has changed. This is reflected in this radically updated third edition, with exciting and helpful new content from new and innovative contributors and new case studies bringing the book right up to the minute.

This book combines over 500 years of experience from leading Business Continuity experts of many countries. It is presented in an easy-to-follow format, explaining in detail the core BC activities incorporated in BS 25999, Business Continuity Guidelines, BS 25777 IT Disaster Recovery and other standards and in the body of knowledge common to the key business continuity institutes.

Contributors from America, Asia Pacific, Europe, China, India and the Middle East provide a truly global perspective, bringing their own insights and approaches to the subject, sharing best practice from the four corners of the world.

We explore and summarize the latest legislation, guidelines and standards impacting BC planning and management and explain their impact.

The structured format, with many revealing case studies, examples and checklists, provides a clear roadmap, simplifying and de-mystifying business continuity processes for those new to its disciplines and providing a benchmark of current best practice for those more experienced practitioners.

This book makes a massive contribution to the knowledge base of BC and risk management. It is essential reading for all business continuity, risk managers and auditors: none should be without it.

Customer Reviews:

Practical BCM at last!

By Clive Henderson - January 24, 2000

This is a thoroughly welcome addition to the business continuity books on the market. It brings a clear, rational approach to a very complicated topic. Unsurprisingly, the book adheres to the ten stage process as defined by the Business Continuity Institute and the Disaster Recovery Institute and is written in a style that is easy to read and with very little jargon. (It even gives guidelines on how to read the book.) The book outlines some important lessons: - The Importance of business continuity management- Business continuity plans should be based on outcome scenarios and not causes- The need for an organized development/implementation- BCM is never complete - amendments and testing will always be requiredThere are a couple of points to note though:- It fails to deliver the message clearly that Business Continuity Management is an umbrella for business impact analysis, risk management and business continuity planning. Too many people just... read more

Comprehensive, but not definitive.

By Jan Husdal - June 28, 2008

I am a researcher within Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM), which has many similarities with Business Continuity Management (BCM). That is why SCRM can and should draw upon BCM for advice. One of many good references for further reading on this subject is the The Definitive Handbook of Business Continuity Management. I haven't read enough books on BCM to say that this is "the definitive" handbook; it certainly is "a comprehensive" handbook. This 600-something pages heavy brick of a book is probably not something you read from cover to cover. I did. Well, most of it, that's how my weekend went by in a fly...

The book has 25 chapters, each written by different contributors and basically self-contained, which means that even if you read only one chapter, you will still have gained valuable insight into what BCM entails. Inevitably there is some replication from author to author; that is because they are discussing the same concept, but from their own experience and their own... read more

Pleasant Overview of Business Continuity Management

By bernardsia - May 13, 2004

Reading the material presented is a breeze. Unfortunately, it is unfair for me to pass judgement on the subject matter, as I am still a novice. Common concepts and definitions are presented on Section 1 while Section 2 expounds on the implementation aspects. Being a newbie I was somewhat impressed that the tasks involved even include mitigating human factors such as psychological effects, as well as a taskforce to handle the media with its coverage of any disaster that might be detrimental to the image of the company. An interesting concept presented was "Multilateral Business Continuity", as it raised questions on whether your business partner's (major customer, supplier, logistics) failure could even spell doom for your business.BCM is presented as an all-encompassing "way of life", ensuring that a business can survive a disaster and bounce back to its pre-disaster profit level, and the tasks and information that is required to ensure proper diagnosis, prescription and... read more