In an ever-evolving landscape of threats, universities must prioritize comprehensive risk assessments to safeguard their operations and ensure the safety of students, staff, and faculty. A thorough risk assessment identifies vulnerabilities, evaluates potential impacts, and informs the development of effective mitigation strategies. Here’s a step-by-step guide to conducting a comprehensive risk assessment for universities. Step 1: Assemble a Risk Assessment Team Team Composition: Form a multidisciplinary team comprising representatives from key departments, including administration, security ..read more

Universities are vibrant centers of learning, innovation, and community, but they also face a range of security threats that can disrupt operations and endanger students, staff, and faculty. From natural disasters to cyberattacks and active shooter situations, universities must be prepared to handle various emergencies. Understanding these threats and implementing effective preparation strategies is essential for ensuring safety and maintaining operational continuity. Here’s a look at the top threats to university security and how to prepare for them. Natural Disasters Threat Overview: Natural ..read more

Top Threats to University Security and How to Prepare Universities are vibrant centers of learning, innovation, and community, but they also face a range of security threats that can disrupt operations and endanger students, staff, and faculty. From natural disasters to cyberattacks and active shooter situations, universities must be prepared to handle various emergencies. Understanding these threats and implementing effective preparation strategies is essential for ensuring safety and maintaining operational continuity. Here’s a look at the top threats to university security and how to prepar ..read more

What is the relationship between Business Continuity and Risk Management? The relationship between Business Continuity and Risk Management depends on the organization. In most cases, Business Continuity is a sub-domain of Risk Management. If there is an existing Enterprise Risk Management framework in the organization, can you use that in your Business Continuity Planning? Or, should you create a new Risk Register and new Risk Assessments for each department inside the Business Continuity Plan? You should refer to your organizational Risk Register as a starting point. However, some Business C ..read more

The Blue Cell BCP Builder was recently featured on The Blue Cell – Michael Brown Show. During this podcast we discussed: My background in Business Continuity and focus on keeping Business Continuity as simple as possible. A description of BCP Builder and how it works. How you can prepare a Business Continuity Plan in one day, and develop it over time. Why you should use your plan for every small incident, to help prepare for a big incident. Why having a Business Continuity Plan is really important to protect your business. If you want to increase your Organizational Resilience, start with p ..read more

What does KFC running out of chicken have in common with how companies respond to a pandemic? Both rely on a business continuity plan to recover. Whether it’s a pandemic, a natural disaster, or something that could impact your reputation, a business continuity plan (BCP) will show you what steps you need to take, who you need to engage, the messages you need send, and how you will recover your business. Because in the digital age, the world is watching, and how you respond will impact your reputation. In the below podcast I talk with Anthony McMahon of Biz Bytes about the importance of Busines ..read more

Business Continuity and the critical Role of Emergency Communication Why Business Continuity Fails Business Continuity often fails, and reasons are manifold. If no business continuity plan exists, there will be ineffective emergency communication and any response to emergency situations depends on the capabilities and action of solitary individuals and its efficacy is random. For large-scale events this can be disastrous. But even an existing business continuity plan is no guarantee for safety as it might be outdated, poorly drilled and exercised or even badly designed. There is also the dange ..read more

How do virtual companies do business continuity planning and what should they be particularly concerned about? Virtual companies with people working from home in multiple locations have a natural resiliency. However, they need to really focus on having strong infrastructure and crisis communications. Feedback from BCP Builder Community on LinkedIn: Virtual Vulnerabilities Virtual companies can become quite complacent very quickly when it comes to resilience. There are a few vulnerability points that can impact on their performance. 1. Their staff are still a critical resource and, if working ..read more

When does the Crisis Management team let go and the Business Continuity team take over? I think these two teams need to work together from the outset, but there is a point where the “lead” is handed over from Crisis Management to Business Continuity. How do these two teams work together in your organization? Or is there just one person/ team who leads both? Feeback from BCP Builder Community on LinkedIn: Proactive vs Reactive Business Continuity Management is proactive while Crisis Management is reactive. Business Continuity prepares the organization to continue during an incident whereas Cri ..read more

Is a Cloud Server the best solution to decrease the time to recovery for small and medium businesses? How reliable a solution is the cloud? With so many people working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, many companies will be moving their data onto a cloud server. From a security, operational and legal perspective – what issues does the cloud raise? Feeback from BCP Builder Community on LinkedIn: Data in Triplicate If your data is not in 3 places then it doesn’t exist. This is true for local and cloud computing. IT service continuity management is an essential element in your solution ..read more