ISO 22301
Business continuity management system implementation and certification support.
ISO 22301 is the international standard for business continuity management. It provides a framework for preparing your organisation to respond to and recover from disruptions—whether cyber attacks, natural disasters, supply chain failures, or other unforeseen events.
What ISO 22301 actually involves
At its core, ISO 22301 requires you to:
- Understand your critical activities and the resources that support them
- Analyse the impacts of disruption to those activities over time
- Develop response and recovery strategies appropriate to your risk tolerance
- Document and test your plans to ensure they work when needed
- Maintain and improve your preparedness continuously
The standard provides structure without being prescriptive about specific solutions. Your business continuity arrangements should reflect your organisation’s actual needs and circumstances.
Who needs ISO 22301
ISO 22301 certification is increasingly valuable for:
- Financial services firms where regulatory expectations around operational resilience are growing
- Healthcare and pharmaceutical organisations with critical service obligations
- Technology and SaaS companies whose customers depend on service availability
- Supply chain partners where customers require continuity assurance
- Public sector organisations with essential service responsibilities
Even without certification, the framework provides practical structure for thinking about organisational resilience.
How we can help
Business impact analysis
We’ll help you identify your critical activities, understand their dependencies, and analyse the impacts of disruption. This foundation shapes everything that follows.
Risk assessment
Working alongside your ISO 27001 risk assessment where applicable, we’ll help identify threats to continuity and assess which scenarios require specific planning.
Strategy development
We’ll guide you through developing appropriate response and recovery strategies:
- Recovery time and point objectives
- Resource requirements and alternatives
- Supplier and partner dependencies
- Communication protocols
- Workaround procedures
Plan documentation
We’ll help create practical, usable plans that work under pressure:
- Business continuity plans
- Incident response procedures
- Crisis communication plans
- IT disaster recovery alignment
Testing and exercising
Plans only work if people know how to use them. We’ll design and facilitate:
- Tabletop exercises
- Simulation walkthroughs
- Technical recovery tests
- Lessons learned reviews
Certification support
When you’re ready for certification, we’ll help with internal audits, management reviews, and audit preparation.
Integration with ISO 27001
If you’re implementing or maintaining ISO 27001, there’s significant overlap with ISO 22301. Both standards share:
- Common management system structure
- Risk-based thinking
- Documentation requirements
- Internal audit and management review processes
We can help you implement an integrated management system that addresses both information security and business continuity efficiently, avoiding duplication of effort.
What to expect
A typical first-time implementation takes 6-9 months, depending on organisational complexity and the maturity of existing continuity arrangements. The business impact analysis and strategy development often take longest.
We’ll provide a realistic timeline and proposal after understanding your specific situation.
Common questions
How is this different from disaster recovery? IT disaster recovery is one component of business continuity. ISO 22301 takes a broader view, covering all critical activities and the people, premises, technology, information, and suppliers that support them.
Do we need ISO 22301 if we already have ISO 27001? ISO 27001 includes controls for business continuity, but ISO 22301 provides a much more comprehensive framework. Many organisations implement ISO 27001 first, then add ISO 22301 when they want deeper resilience capabilities.
How often should we test our plans? The standard requires regular exercising but doesn’t specify frequency. Testing frequency should reflect your risk tolerance and the rate of organisational change. Annual testing of major scenarios is a typical minimum.
What happens if our plans fail during a real incident? Use it as a learning opportunity. The standard expects you to review and improve after incidents. Certification isn’t about perfection—it’s about having a systematic approach to preparedness and continuous improvement.