Business Continuity Planning: A Step-By-Step Guide with Planning Forms, 3rd Edition - Softcover

Fulmer, Kenneth L

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931332215 ISBN 13: 9781931332217

Publisher: Rothstein Associates, Incorporated, 2007

Synopsis

"Kenneth Fulmer, CBCP, has produced an important and useful guide for the business continuity planning novice... and upholds many of the principles you will find promoted and supported by the Business Continuity Institute and encouraged as part of Business Continuity Management good practices... In more than thirty years as a business continuity practitioner, I have seen many small and medium-size businesses pay the penalty for lack of preparedness. Often, overwhelmed by the jargon employed by many practitioners and the mistaken concepts that business continuity is too costly, that it is only for the "big boys," and that they do not have the resources or knowledge base, they choose to take the risk instead. For many, it is an unfortunate choice because much can be done with reasonable commitment to avoid business disruptions or mitigate the impact for those that are unavoidable... In this excellent primer, Mr. Fulmer sets out a simple, concise, and, most of all, logical roadmap both for developing the justification for a business continuity/disaster recovery program as well as for developing and maintaining the resultant plan.

Larry Kalmis, FBCI, Project Executive, Virtual Corporation and Chairman, Business Continuity Institute

About this title

From the Publisher:

For some organizations, Business Continuity (BC) Planning is a fact of life - dedicated staff, budget and resources devoted to continually developing, exercising, validating, maintaining and enhancing their ongoing Business Continuity Management programs. For the typical business whether large or small, reality usually gets in the way.

A colleague of mine used to say that Business Continuity had its own specific gravity: It never quite sank to the bottom of the pile of priorities, but never quite rose to the top. It was always next (or next but one) on the list of things that had to be done.

Every business owner or manager knows they need to address business continuity - some day - after putting out day-to-day fires, paying the bills, taking care of customers, and catching their breath. So, what are those of us who have the luck to operate in the real world, supposed to do about business continuity?

The answer is obvious - do what you can realistically accomplish with whatever time and resources you are able to spare. Of course, you should ensure your BC program meets any legal, contractual or regulatory requirements - and meets your fiduciary responsibilities.

In this book and companion CD-ROM, Ken Fulmer has provided us with a clear, easy-to-use resource for business continuity: a step-by-step tool which isn't going to overwhelm you nor break the bank, yet which will provide you with a sound foundation for beginning on the path to effective business continuity. While there are more complex tools and books available, this Guide will get your BC program going surprisingly fast and with a lot less sweat and tears than you might expect. It will also give you a structure which you can continue to build on as your business changes and evolves, and as you are willing and able to devote more resources to business continuity.

My advice to the reader is to do the best you can, as soon as you can, to address the business continuity requirements of your organization - your business' survival may depend on it!

From the Inside Flap:

"One of the first things that one needs to do when asked to write the preface to a book, is to determine what you feel the book's niche will be. In this case, the book has a very specific niche as a down-to-earth, practical "primer" or introduction to Business Continuity Planning, particularly for small and medium-sized firms.

"It will also help answer the questions "what have I got myself into?" and "what is covered by Business Continuity Planning?" These are questions which someone with little or no Business Continuity Planning experience will ask themselves immediately after they are informed that they are now responsible for such planning within their firm, or that they are now charged with developing such a plan for the firm.

"Other books can provide more depth of detail that may subsequently be needed, but this book will enable someone with little or no experience to start to put together a project plan, determine what they need to include in the initial structure of the plan and identify those areas that they may need to research further. Someone with more experience will find this book a useful resource to make sure they have covered all the bases. Worksheets, forms and action items are located throughout the book to provide that initial information base on which to build a plan.

"This book provides the basic information to enable firms to start the development of their plans in the "classical" business continuity planning manner. Alternatively if one wishes to approach the plan in a different manner, possibly due to corporate culture issues, the book still provides an information base that can assist one in developing your own project and plan documentation. One other advantage of starting with this book is that the reader starts from a simple beginning and can build to more detail, as that becomes necessary. This point is a key consideration. There is a tendency when developing a Business Continuity Plan to make it more complicated and detailed than may be necessary, particularly in small or medium-sized firms.

"The Rt. Hon. David Blunkett, presently the Home Secretary in the United Kingdom Government, said recently in the Foreword to a new booklet "Expecting the Unexpected: Business Continuity in an Uncertain World" that Business Continuity and planning is just as important for small firms as it is for large corporations and that plans need to be simple but effective, comprehensive but tailored to the needs of the organization.

"This book will put those, particularly in small and medium-sized firms, on the track to develop simple but comprehensive plans tailored to the needs of their organizations. Although written with an IT bias, one can extrapolate from the IT to determine what needs to be done by the business units or from an overall business perspective.These comprise 10 subject areas of a common body of knowledge that characterizes the profession. Each subject area contains a description of the area, the role of the professional and an outline of the knowledge that the professional should demonstrate within that subject area.

Melvin Musson, Fellow, Business Continuity Institute (FBCI) Business Continuity Planning Manager, Internal Audit Edward Jones, St. Louis, Missouri

About this edition

• Publisher: Rothstein Associates, Incorporated
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1931332215
• ISBN 13: 9781931332217
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 200