very organization is subjected to the danger of potential events, such as natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, and etc.) and environmental disasters (pollution and leakage of dangerous materials). In this regard, providing and keeping a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) helps the organization to ensure about possession of the required resources and data to confront with these emergency conditions (
1).
In 2007, British Standards Institution (BSI) formulated BS-25999 standard called " Business Continuity Management (BCM)". The first approach of this standard is to prepare organizations and companies to confront various kinds of crises. This standard, as the first standard of management of business continuity, creats an appropriate management system and tries to help the organization to continue working even in the most unpredicted severe conditions. In this way, it reduces the risk of failure, supports the prosperity and security of staff as well as validity of the organization, and provides the ability to guide and continue main activities. This standard was published in two parts late in 2006 and early in 2007 (
2):
1- The first part of
BS-25999 is introduced as a manual and expresses how to make a business continuity management process. It also provides examples and appropriate suggestions. Generally, it is a standard that:
A. Makes processes, rules, and related terms to BCM.
B. Provides an introduction for implementation and measurement of the durability of Business Continuity in the organization.
C. Can be executed and implemented in various organizational scales.
2- The second part of
BS-25999, which contains the specifications and features of the management schema, contains the needed requirements for implementation, execution, and advancement of a business continuity management system (BCMS). This part enables the organization to validate and formalize arrangements of the business continuity management by an external audit. In other words, they can have an independent audit for this purpose. It makes shareholders, clients, and insurance agencies more assured about management process of the business continuity in the mentioned organization.
The main purpose of the standard is to offer basic concepts for understanding, making, and implementing business continuity in an organization. Additionally, it looks for assurance of organization relations with its clients and other organizations. This standard enables the organization to evaluate and measure the management ability of the business continuity through an integrated and predefined method. The defined needs and requirements in British Standard are general. It is expected that regardless of the type, size, and nature of the business, it should be applicable in all organizations (or at least parts of them).
The Water and Wastewater Company has the responsibility of supplying and keeping water as an essential element of life. Therefore, continuation of its activities is of great importance in disaster time. If this organization can keep on its regular operation in emergency conditions, the society can return to normal situation more rapidly. So, it is necessary to plan for the continuity of activities in critical conditions before the disaster happens.
Shimoda reported an integrated set of necessary data on security issues in urban water and wastewater system, which was the consequence of broad research in the United States. This research was presented as a source on security issues of water and wastewater system for a wide range of catastrophic factors (
3).
Mozaffari also considered the vulnerability of water supply systems against earthquakes and examines solutions for crisis management in this system (
4).
After examining the research background, the theoretical foundations of BCP in the crisis management system is addressed in this paper. In the case study section, the general specifications of Tehran and Water and Wastewater Company of Tehran province are studied and then, research methodology is described. Finally, the results were presented.
Theoretical Foundations
In this section, to clarify the theoretical foundations of the research, three topics were focoused on: the place of BCP in crisis management cycle, the life cycle of business continuity, Plan- Do-Check-Act, which are used in research and formulation of the plan.
The Place of BCP in Crisis Management Cycle
The initial goal of crisis management is to avoid casualties and losses of life caused by the crisis and being prepared to deal with them. Then, in the case of a crisis, the aim is to make a quick relief and reduce the effects and consequences of the crisis. One of the critical parts of the crisis management cycle is the recovery and improvement after the disaster. Business Continuity Plan can be considered as a pass from the response to the recovery phase of disaster cycle
(Figure 1). This planning should initiate immediately after occurance of a disaster in an organization and should be continued until beginning of the complete renovation and recovery plans.
