ISO 22301:2019 Standard

About ISO 22301

ISO 22301:2019 is an updated international standard that provides organisations with the requirements to establish an effective BCMS. The Standard enables users to prepare for and minimise the impact of disruptive incidents that could delay operations and impact the objectives of employees, suppliers and customers.

ISO 22301 is suitable for:

• Senior business managers;
• Continuity, resilience, risk and change management industries;
• The quality management industry; and
• Insurers.

Reasons to implement ISO 22301

ISO 22301 is based on the principles of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle – a management model that is used to achieve continual improvements to an organisation’s efficiency through planning, implementation, analysis and optimisation.

The requirements are suitable for all organisations that:

• Use a BCMS;
• Need to conform with declared business continuity policies;
• Need a suitable predetermined level of business continuity during a disruption; and
• Seek to effectively use the BCMS to minimise the impact of disruptions.

Organisations that implement ISO 22301 can more effectively assess their ability to meet their own continuity objectives and determine effective business continuity management policies, enabling them to be more resilient if disruptions arise.

Those that do not use the Standard to improve their management systems risk significant vulnerability, which could result in costly recovery attempts, damage to reputation and disrupted business operations.

Changes to the previous edition

ISO 22301:2019 overrides the first edition (ISO 22301:2012).

This technical revision features the following changes:

• The Standard now conforms to ISO’s management system standards requirements.
• Clarified requirements; no new requirements.
• Improved clarity and consistency for discipline-specific business continuity terminology.
• Most discipline-specific business continuity requirements can now be found in section 8.