More than ever, the basic lesson for business managers and for business continuity professionals is: anything can happen!

This book is a guide to best practices in understanding risk and business impact. It provides essential guidance for the identification, management and control of risks confronting businesses --- What might happen? How will our enterprise be affected? What will the impact be? Answering these questions accurately and objectively is essential to Business Continuity Management, business success - and even business survival.

The helpful examples all have their roots in real cases and come heavily laden with pragmatism. Over fifteen years experience in blue chip environments, large and small, public and private, has gone into developing the methods described. Others come with a respected pedigree from a variety of industries. Your own "right way" for risk management means picking, matching and tailoring from the cases, guidance and examples provided, and building on existing best practice within your organization.

"This book is intended to provide guidance and examples for the identification,
management and control of risks. Wherever practicable, we have used case studies and examples to illustrate the points.

"It is impossible to cover every industry, every process and every activity in work of this sort. We have therefore made the work as comprehensive as practicable and focused particularly on those risk areas of generic value to the reader, while providing references and case studies relevant to specific market sectors.

"Many examples are provided throughout this guide: these all have their roots in real cases and come heavily laden with pragmatism. Over fifteen years experience in blue chip environments, large and small, public and private, has gone into developing some of the methods described. Others come with a respected pedigree from a variety of industries.

Your own "right way" for risk management means picking, matching and tailoring from the cases and examples provided and building on existing best practice within your organization.

"Where practicable we have provided examples of different methodologies so that
the one most appropriate to the reader's organization's business continuity maturity and culture can be selected. The author is also conscious that it can only be a partial picture of what is a global business continuity industry. However, we have tried to be representative as far as practicable, illustrating issues, approaches and requirements from various countries."