SGS United Kingdom has become one of the first certification bodies in the UK to achieve United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accreditation to certify companies to ISO 22301.
ISO 22301:2012 Societal security—Business continuity management systems—Requirements specifies the requirements to plan, establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain, and continually improve a documented management system. The aim is to safeguard against, prepare for, respond to, or recover from disruptive incidents when they arise.
SGS has been working with UKAS to transition to the new standard and become accredited.
Completing an ISO 22301 certification audit from SGS is expected to increase an organization’s resilience and recovery, and improve the risk profile with clients, insurers, and stakeholders.
SGS’s Global Product Manager for ISO 27001, ISO 22301, and ISO 20000; and CBCI member of the Business Continuity Institute, Richard Skipsey, sees this latest accreditation as vital for SGS clients.
“There is a great interest in ISO 22301 from organizations in the UK and there is also a great deal of interest from global companies and from many SGS clients who work with government departments,” Skipsey said. “Suppliers are now being asked for their compliance with ISO 22301 and so we instigated the accreditation process through UKAS.”
The ISO 22301 certification ensures that a planned, effective business continuity management (BCM) system is in place, enabling organizations to respond effectively to any disruption. A BCM is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts to business operations those threats might cause. The system also provides a framework for building organizational resilience with the capability of an effective response to safeguard the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand, and value-creating activities.
Skipsey believes it shows a firm commitment to keeping a business running during the management of critical issues.
“With an established BCM system, built on ISO 22301, you can define key business processes and the impact that could result from any threats,” Skipsey said. “We have spent the best part of eight months working with UKAS to review our processes. They performed a witnessed audit, a remote audit, and a detailed assessment of our work in this field. We have auditors in key locations around the world who can audit ISO 22301 in any location globally. This is a real distinguishing factor for SGS and it shows how seriously we take the issues of business continuity in the real world.”