The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) has released the 2022 edition of its annual Horizon Scan Report, sponsored by BSI (British Standards).
In a foreword, BCI chair Christopher Horne said we still need to be prepared for the unexpected. “While we have seen many members breathe new life into their programmes and our industry over the past two years, there is still work to be done in terms of risk planning and ensuring organisations are prepared for anything – however unlikely it may appear,” he wrote.
Business continuity, resilience and risk professionals’ thoughts remain dominated by the pandemic, he added, with incidents such as exchange rate volatility, political change, violence and civil unrest and natural resources shortages ranking towards the bottom of the table for concerns for 2022. The survey – of business continuity and resilience managers, mainly in Europe and North America, besides risk and information security managers – closed before the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Horne also wrote of the need to do horizon scanning, and risk mapping, noting that astute professionals had seen issues developing in Ukraine weeks before the mainstream news broke, ‘and spent time firming up cyber security and reviewing supply chains’.
You don’t have to be a member of the Institute to download the 68-page report; you register on the BCI website.
A practitioner giving insights during the online launch of the report was Mairead Loughman, Risk Manager at University College Cork (UCC).
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Rachael Elliott, Head of Thought Leadership at The BCI, introduced the EMEA report online this morning (the reports for APAC, and Americas, are launched tomorrow).
She said beforehand: “This year’s report has been written at the juxtaposition of two major global incidents: the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. After business continuity (BC) and resilience professionals made learnings during the pandemic, transformed their BC programmes and won the attention required from senior management to breathe additional investment into their departments, the findings of this report show that the old adage is still ringing true. Practitioners’ concerns when it comes to scanning for future risks are still dominated by events which are happening now. Professionals need to continue to broaden their view of the risk landscape to ensure their organisations are fully prepared for a myriad of risks – even if the likelihood of some is perceived as low.”
Pietro Foschi, BSI Group Executive Director Assurance Services, also attended the web launch. He said he was encouraged to see the progress achieved in managing risks using best practice-based standards, not only the international standard on Business Continuity Management Systems (ISO22301) but others that contribute to the long-term resilience of organisations, large and small.
He said: “This report, more than previous editions, confirms that leaders need to focus on enhancing their resilience as a direct response to increasing threats from cyberattacks, changes to working practices, the climate crisis or geopolitical disruptions. To become truly resilient and future-ready, organisations embedding best practice will increase the agility of their teams and accelerate their response to new, emerging global risks, as well as to unpredicted and somewhat unpredictable events.”
More in the May print edition of Professional Security magazine.
