Good Morning,

Before the recent SARS outbreak, many businesses in Singapore did not see the need to have contingency plans to deal with event risks that pose major disruptions to their operations. The impact of SARS has changed all that. Organisations in both private and public sectors had to quickly put in place plans to ensure business continuity.

To address such industry needs, SPRING Singapore has developed a standard on Business Continuity Management (BCM). A BCM programme entails a systematic assessment of risks that threatens to disrupt operations and the development of plans to address these threats. BCM helps to increase the organisation’s resilience and capacity to respond to different types of crises and disasters.

The globalisation of businesses and markets means that events taking place in one country can have far-reaching consequences beyond its shores. For example, the US West Coast port closure last year and the war in Iraq adversely affected the business performance of Singapore-based companies and the Singapore economy.

Organisations also face risks, such as a major fire or virus attack or hacking of its computer systems, financial collapse of a major customer, contamination of water supplies or even terrorist attacks.

Operational disruptions do not just affect a few businesses. They can have a major impact on an entire sector and even trigger off a chain reaction and cripple the national economy. These are the reasons that underlie SPRING's efforts to develop a BCM standard.

For organisations, there are three key benefits when they implement BCM. Firstly, BCM increases their resilience to business disruptions. Secondly, BCM helps to minimise losses and the negative impact of a crisis on business. Thirdly, and most importantly, BCM helps to maintain the confidence of investors and stakeholders.

SPRING developed its BCM standard in consultation with practitioners and consultants in this field. As the standard is generic and non-prescriptive, it can be used by all organisations, regardless of their size or industry sectors. SPRING pilot-tested the standard with ten organisations from the manufacturing and service sectors. They are Baxter Healthcare, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Jason Electronics, NTUC FairPrice, Philips Electronics, PowerGas, Singapore Airport Terminal Services, ST Kinetics, Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Company and Teck Wah Industrial Corporation.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the management and staff of the 10 participating organisations and the resource persons from Disaster Recovery Institute (Asia), CrisisAsia, Business Continuity Planning Asia and Motorola Electronics for working with SPRING on the programme.

I am pleased to announce that organisations can now apply for certification to the BCM standard. They have to first conduct a self-audit and submit the results of the self-audit to SPRING for evaluation. Organisations that are found by SPRING auditors to have complied with the requirements will be certified. SMEs that are keen to have a BCM programme can tap on the Local Enterprise Technical Assistance Scheme (LETAS) to defray the costs of engaging external consultants to help them set up the programme.

SPRING has also planned a series of seminars and conferences in the coming months to raise the awareness of organisations on BCM. These sessions will feature presentations by practitioners and experience sharing by companies with best practices. Training workshops have also been planned to prepare organisations that are keen to incorporate BCM into their operations.

To further help SMEs, SPRING intends to develop a user's guide to explain the BCM requirements and ways to implement them. A case study to showcase organisations with best practices will also be published.

The requirements are the first step towards establishing a national standard for BCM. SPRING will form a technical committee under the national standardisation programme soon to begin work on developing the national standard. We will work towards making this national standard an internationally recognised standard for BCM.

BCM is not a once-off exercise, organisations need to reassess their risks and responses continually and weigh the cost of the programme against the disruption that may arise from such risks.

By providing a strong base of supporting industries that are BCM-ready, more MNCs and entrepreneurs can be attracted to operate here and use Singapore as their regional base. This, in turn, will enhance Singapore’s overall competitiveness as a FDI destination. It will give foreign investors greater assurance and confidence in the rsilience of Singapore companies (especially those engaging in essential services) in dealing with disasters and crises.

I hope more Singapore companies will give some thoughts to implementing the BCM programme. It will make economic sense for many of them. SPRING stands ready to assist them to put the programme in place. Thank you