BCP Confidential

By Nathaniel Forbes

Blueprints for Business Continuity Planning

Archives for 2008

Singapore BCM Standard SS540: TR19 with a facelift

Monday, December 01 2008 08:23 AM

In July 2008, I wrote that Technical Reference 19 (TR 19:2005), Singapore's proposed international standard for business continuity management (BCM), appeared to be dying a slow death and suggested that the prognosis for it might be terminal. I was wrong.

It turns out that the patient just needed cosmetic..... Read more ť

Tags: Certification, Business Continuity, Standard, Singapore, marketing, incentive, health care, ISO, ISO 9001, process improvement

Emergency excitement online

Wednesday, October 29 2008 03:16 PM

Video game Zero Hour: Americas Medic lets responders try out real-time strategies in hazardous virtual environments, with sound effects and human conversations, just like those in the hugely-popular Halo game series (don't know Halo? Ask a male teenager). The game was created by those..... Read more ť

Tags: George Washington University, virtual environment, homeland security, video game, video, game, strategy, America

Templates published for mass fatality incidents

Wednesday, October 29 2008 02:51 PM

Many hospitals are unprepared to deal with large numbers of dead bodies--a mass fatality incident, or MFI--that would result from an earthquake or flu pandemic. A "mortality surge" would overwhelm morgue capacity, as it did in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, for example.

U.S. hospitals are required to develop MFI..... Read more ť

Tags: Asia, Hospital, Human Resources, Business Continuity, HR professional, insurance benefit, business continuity planning, company executive, insurance, action plan

Emergency response the weakest link in organizational resilience

Thursday, October 16 2008 10:52 AM

I think of organizational resilience as a chain that links security, emergency management (EM), disaster recovery, business continuity management (BCM) and crisis management. A resilient organization deploys appropriate security, has an IT disaster recovery plan, exercises its business continuity plan and has a separate crisis management plan.

But most organizations..... Read more ť

Tags: Asia, Security, Emergency Manager, Business Continuity, business continuity planning, information technology, Manager, Plan, Business Continuity Manager, Emergency Response

Asia earthquakes heighten BCP need

Friday, September 19 2008 03:10 PM

It's hard not to notice the earthquake risk around the Pacific Rim these days. I'm not sure if the risk is actually higher, or if I'm just noticing it more.

In the last four months, Asia has had three earthquakes of 6.0 or higher on the..... Read more ť

Tags: Asia, Tsunami, Business Continuity, Hong Kong, India, China, insurance, Munich, Pacific, Singapore

Getting credit for having a BCP

Wednesday, July 30 2008 03:38 PM

In July U.S. credit rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) started evaluating the enterprise risk management (ERM) capabilities of non-financial companies that it covers. This is S&P's announcement, and here are their answers to common questions about it.

Extrapolating an ERM evaluation to a..... Read more ť

Singapore's TR19 BCM standard: in intensive care, prognosis dire

Thursday, July 17 2008 11:42 AM

In the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Framework for Voluntary Preparedness report of January 2008, the authors refer to Singapore's Technical Reference for Business Continuity Management (TR19) as an "authoritative source" for "best practices" (see page 4).

That's ironic, because among professionals here in Singapore, TR19 has..... Read more ť

Singapore Exchange proposes BCM rules

Wednesday, May 14 2008 06:51 AM

Singapore Exchange (SGX) has issued proposed business rules on business continuity for public comment. The rules are likely to take effect for member firms in third-quarter 2008, and firms would have 12 months to comply. Member firms were briefed on the new rules in April.

SGX..... Read more ť

Singapore pandemic will spread Aug. 28 to Sep. 11

Monday, April 28 2008 04:58 PM

Singapore's financial sector industry-wide exercise (IWE) will run from Thursday, Aug 28 to Friday, Sep 11, 2008. There will be three sessions corresponding to WHO phases five and six in a highly-pathogenic influenza (HPI) scenario over the two-week period, plus a..... Read more ť

India conference bridges 'resilience professions'

Sunday, March 23 2008 02:12 PM

There is no more important long-term challenge in protecting businesses, homes and lives than bridging the knowledge gaps between what I call "resilience professions" - jobs in business continuity, disaster response, disaster recovery, emergency management, crisis management, risk management and security.

Asia is about to host the first conference I've..... Read more ť

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About the blogger

Nathaniel Forbes

Nathaniel Forbes is the director of Forbes Calamity Prevention, a Singapore-based consulting firm providing business continuity, crisis management and emergency response advice and training to multinational companies, with a focus on companies with offices in Asia. The firm is 10 years old. FCP's current and past clients include Singapore Exchange Ltd, OCBC Bank, AXA Insurance, The Gillette Company, Siemens and ABN Amro Bank. A former President of the Singapore Computer Societys Business Continuity Group, Nathaniel passed the DRIIs Certified Business Continuity Planner (CBCP) examination in 1997. He has lived, traveled or worked in Asia since 1973.