LRQA Gains Global Accreditation for Business Continuity Standard
03/19/2009
Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Ltd (LRQA), the world’s leading provider of business assurance services, has been awarded global accreditation to provide certification against the Business Continuity Management Systems standard, BS 25999-2:2007. The accreditation was granted by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), one of the world’s premier global accreditation bodies.
Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Ltd (LRQA), the world’s leading provider of business assurance services, has been awarded global accreditation to provide certification against the Business Continuity Management Systems standard, BS 25999-2:2007. The accreditation was granted by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), one of the world’s premier global accreditation bodies.
LRQA’s unique Business Assurance approach is designed to help businesses ensure that their management systems effectively manage their risks and safeguard their future, instilling confidence and building trust with their stakeholders.
In June 2008, UK accreditation was issued to LRQA by UKAS. LINK Associates was the first UK client to be LRQA certified to BS 25999. In August, 2008, LRQA certified 21CN, British Telecom’s (BT) global, software driven customer network. BT added the standard to its impressive list of management systems certifications addressing a wide range of business issues. Tim Pinnell, head of the BT Group’s security and continuity policy management team, said “By certifying 21CN to BS 25999 we can give our customers external assurance that 21CN has effective business continuity management systems. Ultimately, the certification process was successful for both BT and LRQA. It raised the profile of business continuity within BT and laid the foundation for future certifications in other parts of BT.”
LRQA’s UK Business Centre Manager, Denis Ives, sees business continuity as an important part of its future business growth, adding "It is likely that, over the next few years, organisations that can demonstrate they have effective BCM systems as part of their service offering will gain competitive advantage when tendering for contracts. In the long term it is likely that BCM certification will become a prerequisite requirement on many contractual specifications."
In March of this year, LRQA certified its first client outside of the UK to BS 25999. LRQA certified the Dutch operations of this global organisation, based in the oil and gas and power generation sectors, which sees BS 25999 certification as a clear demonstration to stakeholders of its long term vision and supply chain resilience. Following a witnessed initial assessment and comprehensive of LRQA, UKAS accredited LRQA to certify organisations globally against BS 25999.
Mike James, the LRQA Managing Director, said “In today’s difficult economic times, organisations are increasingly turning to management systems as an effective, efficient way of managing their risk. Global accreditation of our BS 25999 certification services is a crucial step for LRQA in achieving our goal of becoming the world’s leading provider of business continuity assurance services.”
About BS 25999
BS 25999-2:2007 refers to business continuity management as ‘the holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organisation and the impacts to business operations that those threats, if realised, might cause.’ David Austin, leading business continuity expert, described it as: “Business continuity is about planning for unexpected events that have a really high impact on your organisation. In essence it’s about risk management, a completely holistic process in that you’re looking at the whole of the organisation.”
In December 2006, BS 25999-1 was released, providing a more comprehensive solution for organisations that had previously relied on the information security standard, BS 7799, which only peripherally addressed BCP to improve an organisation's information security compliance. BS 25999's applicability extends to organisations of all types, sizes, and missions whether governmental or private, profit or non-profit, large or small.
In 2007, the second part of the standard, named BS 25999-2 "Specification for Business Continuity Management" was published. It specified requirements for implementing, operating and improving a documented Business Continuity Management System (BCMS). An independently certified BCMS assists an organisation in analysing and evaluating risk management strategies to enable them to ensure reliability and delivery of critical services and results. According to research conducted by the Chartered Management Institute, corporate governance and central government requirements were reported to be the strongest drivers behind the adoption of formal business continuity arrangements - a significant shift from previous years when customer demand was reported to be the leading driver. Forty-six percent of larger companies said that corporate governance was the main driver in their organisation.
Business Continuity section on www.businessassurance.com
A video podcast series featuring David Austin is available for viewing and downloading in the business continuity section of www.businessassurance.com, which LRQA created in November 2006 as the world's first ever knowledge sharing portal for management systems professionals. In the series, David talks about the importance of a BCMS during the economic downturn, integrating a BCMS into an organisation’s existing management systems, as well as providing an overview of the BS 25999 standard. The business continuity section is one of eight sections on the site and includes blogs, podcasts, news, events, resources and standards relating to Business Continuity.
Learn More
Contact a Business Advisor to discuss your Business Continuity needs.