The business continuity industry is rapidly maturing.  Regulatory requirements require action in many industries, customers are demanding business continuity protection from key suppliers, and a focus on corporate governance is leading to additional inquiries from the most senior business executives.  Recent crises have also demonstrated the need for all entities - public and private - to prepare and work together in order to increase the likelihood of an effective response.

In this environment, organizational certification has emerged as a method of demonstrating commitment and readiness to key stakeholders.  BS 25999, launched in November 2007 (www.bsiamericas.com), is one such example, as is existing ISO standards governing issues such as information security (ISO 27001).  In the United States, Title IX is emerging as another example of voluntary certification. 

Why become certified?  An organizational certification is a visible demonstration of your commitment to business continuity and provides comfort to stakeholders (employees, investors, regulators and customers) regarding the viability of your program.  Obtaining and communicating your organizational certification will lead to a decrease in the number of audit requests and other inquiries.  Certification may also lead to insurance premium savings and credit rating enhancement. 

Avalution can assist in preparing your organization in two ways:

1. Readiness Review - We can perform a current-state program assessment to measure your
    readiness for certification, and identify areas for improvement that should be corrected before
    the certification audit begins.

2. Consultative Assistance - We can assist your organization with meeting certification requirements
    - in whole, or in part.  We can also work with the audit team to discuss compliance, and also
    assist throughout the course of the audit as your advocate.

Avalution is recognized as a BSI Americas Associate Consultant Program (ACP) participant.  BSI Americas administers the ACP program in order to provide a list of consulting organizations who are "credible and offer an acceptable service in terms of value and performance.” 

Contact us if you would like to learn more about organizational certification, or our services specific to certification preparation.  Also, be sure to download a copy of our whitepaper titled How to Deploy BS 25999.