Strategic BCP Maps Business Continuity Best Practices ?Genome?

Strategic BCP today announced that it has completed mapping the business continuity “genome” for collection agencies and creditors, effectively creating a single Business Continuity “gold standard.” This new “gold standard” covers the requirements of nine regulations and guidelines key to the compliance and competitiveness of collections agencies and creditors as these relate to Business Continuity. These include:

• FFIEC: Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s Business Continuity Work Program
• ISO: International Organization for Standardization 17799 guidelines
• HIPAA: The Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
• NIST: National Institute of Standards & Technology SP 800-34
• NFPA: National Fire Protection Association 1600 guidelines
• DRI: Disaster Recovery Institute guidelines
• BCI: Business Continuity Institute guidelines
• COBIT: Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology
• COSO: Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission

More than 100 separate requirements were factored into creating this new comprehensive standard, resulting in a weighted, best-practices approach to Business Continuity for collection agencies and creditors. “Historically the industry has had to try to comply with these standards on a piecemeal basis, with exorbitant costs in time and money and no assurance of full compliance,” noted Frank Perlmutter, president of Strategic BCP. “We knew there was a better way, so we put more than 200 hours over the course of 8 months into this effort. Our experience in Business Continuity and working for major financial institutions, healthcare organizations, and the Federal government enabled us to do just that.”

With the creation of Strategic BCP’s new “gold standard” for Business Continuity, the firm is now offering creditors and collection agencies the ability to compare their own Business Continuity plans against it. Strategic BCP’s Uniform Scorecard is available by contacting the firm through its website at www.strategicbcp.com or by calling 800-594-SBCP. With the Uniform Scorecard, organizations can determine how compliant and resilient they are, providing the ability to better compete for new business and gain greater levels of resiliency in the face of any threat.