Business Continuity Management (BCM) is defined as “a rehearsed way to bring back or return to normal process of delivery your products or services to your customers.”

BCM serves as a road map in case of a business interruption. Having the framework in place allows the company to minimize losses, shorten recovery time and gain a competitive advantage as it demonstrates its ability to maintain delivery.

“We’re the bad guys who will say, for example, ‘Maybe you’re in denial that there’s a real estate bubble.’ We’re the bearer of bad news, the ones who will challenge your views,”

says Rene Mayol, First Philippine Holdings Corporation’s BCM lead.

An example of a successful BCM implementation is First Gas. In 2012, the company carried out measures that kept its power plants running after several of its transformers malfunctioned. Mayol credits First Gas personnel for immediately activating the company’s BCM plan, considerably reducing the plants’ downtime.

A good BCM starts with risk assessment, where companies— or even households— determine the likelihood and impact of a variety of scenarios.

These include “civil unrest, communications failure, computer crime or attack, earthquake, explosion, fire, flooding, hurricane and tropical storms, infectious disease, landslides and subsidence, loss of key supplier/customer, system failure, transportation accidents, volcanic eruption, windstorm and workplace violence.”

“We ask what their business and strategic objectives are. Based on that, we present the things that can possibly happen that would prevent them from achieving these goals,” Mayol says.

The companies then “assess the effectiveness of mitigating measures for strategy and action plans, availability of resources (time, money and people), competency and engagement of people, review and improvement.”