Business continuity management (BCM) refers to an overarching management process that aims to identify serious risks to an organisation at an early stage and to initiate countermeasures. This means: In order to ensure the continued existence of the company, suitable preventive measures must be taken to increase the reliability of business processes on the one hand and to be able to react quickly and purposefully in crises on the other. BCM comprises a planned and organised approach to sustainably improve the resilience of (time) critical business processes of an institution or organisation, to react appropriately to damaging events and to enable the fastest possible resumption of business activities in the event of an actual failure.

Companies that have established a business continuity management system have a clear competitive advantage in a crisis: such a system defines, among other things, a precise plan for how normal operations can be resumed in the shortest possible time after a disruption caused by a malfunction. As a result, financial and structural damage can often be significantly reduced and an existential threat to the company can be avoided. The truth is that this can save a lot of money. In addition to concrete measures and processes, such a system also includes strategic planning, especially to minimise long-term risks for the company's IT.

Regardless of this, Business Continuity Management (BCM) must be understood as a holistic concept that affects almost all levels of a company - every workplace and every system that is connected to IT in some way must be included and taken into account. All BCM measures can be proactive, strategic or reactive.

In the age of total networking, Industry 4.0 and the ubiquitous influence of the World Wide Web, we are used to being able to access the many benefits of these systems. Many people are not aware that in a crisis situation, IT processes can fail and companies can become vulnerable. But when it happens and such a crisis occurs, the damage and sometimes the despair is enormous.

This makes it all the more important for companies to react to such difficult situations in the best possible way - or even better: to ward them off in good time. When set up and carried out properly, business continuity management is considered an invaluable and indispensable tool to best arm oneself against unavoidable and unforeseen threats. In many cases, outages and the associated turnover or loss of revenue due to major process disruptions can be minimised and disruptions to particularly critical and necessary business processes (e.g. maintaining supply or production chains) can be significantly reduced. The more complete the BCM system, the more successfully it is used in emergency situations.  Je vollständiger das BCM-System ist, desto erfolgreicher wird es in Notfallsituationen eingesetzt.

Furthermore, more and more companies and service providers are recognising the importance of BCM and see it as a prerequisite for cooperation in many areas. Companies that have implemented business continuity management use this fact, for example, to strengthen their negotiating position vis-à-vis service providers in the financial sector or to continuously build the trust of interested business partners and customers in their business.

A sustainably successful company is not determined solely by annually growing sales figures or increasing staff numbers. Those who recognise a crisis early enough, and in some cases even anticipate it, can effectively train and prepare themselves, the company and their employees. Especially in a crisis situation, it is important not to make hasty and impulsive decisions, but to base them on facts. As ridiculous as it may sound, this is especially true when personal fates are at stake and the emotional burden is high.