Business Continuity Management System

ISO 22301:2019 is the international standard for business continuity management systems (BCMS). It specifies requirements to plan, establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain, and continually improve a documented BCMS to protect against, reduce the likelihood of, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptive incidents when they arise.

The 2019 revision aligns ISO 22301 with the High-Level Structure shared by ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and ISO/IEC 27001.

• Financial services, banking, insurance, fintech
• Healthcare and life-critical services
• Critical infrastructure and utilities
• SaaS and cloud service providers with SLA commitments
• Logistics, supply chain, and just-in-time operations
• Government contractors with continuity flow-down requirements
• Any organization responding to customer continuity assurance questionnaires

• Context & interested parties — understanding the organization and stakeholder needs.
• Leadership — BC policy, top-management commitment, roles and responsibilities.
• Planning — risk and opportunities, BC objectives, change planning.
• Support — resources, competence, awareness, communication, documented information.
• Operation — business impact analysis (BIA), risk assessment, BC strategy, BC procedures, exercising and testing.
• Performance evaluation — monitoring, evaluation of BC, internal audit, management review.
• Improvement — nonconformity, corrective action, continual improvement.

For technology and service providers, ISO 22301 frequently integrates with ISO/IEC 27001 (information security) and ISO/IEC 20000-1 (service management) under a single management system — covering resilience, security, and service quality together.

Most ISO 22301 engagements complete in 8–14 weeks, with depth driven by the business impact analysis and the maturity of existing recovery practices.