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Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a business continuity manager. You can use our job description template in this article to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a business continuity manager.

 

Who is a Business Continuity Manager?

Business continuity managers are management specialists who develop crisis management strategies to maintain an organization’s operations after disruptive incidents. To keep all company offices prepared at all times, these managers must create and execute business continuity strategies for each office. While coordinating all operations for disaster recovery and business continuity exercises globally, they must strengthen integrated risk management concepts. Managers of business continuity must collaborate with other companies to create business recovery plans.

Business continuity managers are management experts who create crisis management plans to keep a company’s operations running following disruptive events. These managers must develop and implement business continuity plans for every office in the firm to maintain readiness at all times. They must enhance integrated risk management ideas while coordinating all activities for disaster recovery and business continuity exercises on a worldwide scale. Business recovery plans must be developed in cooperation with other businesses by managers of business continuity.

 

Business Continuity Manager Job Description

Below are the business continuity manager job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.

The duties and responsibilities of a business continuity manager include the following;

• Examine the organization’s disaster recovery strategy to make sure it complies with regulations and is consistently updated.
• Build a backup facility or alternative location to house activities during a crisis as part of developing strategies for continuing operations after a catastrophe.
• Keep in touch with insurance brokers and agents to discuss coverage requirements and make sure the company has enough insurance in place to cover any risks.
• Evaluate emergency response strategies and identify potential improvement areas.
• Keep an eye on corporate practices, technological advancements, and legal needs to make sure the strategy complies with current criteria.
• Coordinate emergency response activities with regional or national government agencies.
• Keep an eye on risk management practices to verify they adhere to industry requirements.
• Coordinate communication with external stakeholders, including clients, staff members, partners in business, and media sources, during a crisis.
• Create and maintain a disaster recovery plan that is efficient, complies with industry standards, and can be promptly carried out in an emergency.
• Take on a leadership position in the creation and upkeep of the BCM program throughout the whole company.
• Develop and facilitate enterprise-wide event exercises, manage relationships with external suppliers, and lead continuity planning and event management. Develop company policy, standards, and guidelines.
• Create and maintain program procedures and processes that effectively guarantee that the company program stays current, and incorporates.
• Align with industry norms and practices as necessary, and sufficiently satisfies basic legal requirements.
• Ensure that the different companies’ business continuity management procedures are in line with the entity’s enterprise-wide business continuity management program and quality requirements by offering advice and direction.
• Make sure that requirements and data from diverse sources, such as outside regulators and auditors for all countries, are properly integrated.
• Conduct evacuation exercises, evaluate the efficacy of the procedures, and make any required revisions.
• Manage quarterly evaluations of changes in corporate resources with the management of those areas to ensure the efficacy of recovery processes and backup capabilities.
• Guides staff members in the establishment of recovery procedures for important areas of the business.
• Design and manage the testing of recovery assistance, and establish disaster recovery testing methodology.
• Guarantee the effectiveness of recovery operations for the restoration of important company resources and the restart of vital business processes.
• Provide round-the-clock on-call assistance for any event that could need the partial or full activation of business recovery or disaster recovery plans.
• Safeguard the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of business recovery and catastrophe recovery plans.
• Create project plans that include testing, requirements, risks, and schedules.

 

Qualifications

• 5 to 7 years of broad exposure to the operations, manufacturing, and technology environments, as well as to varied settings in the healthcare sector and/or the business continuity management sector.
• A reasonable degree of exposure to understanding best practices for business continuity management.
• Powerful organizational abilities.
• Exceptional capacity for composure under pressure.
• Outstanding leadership and teamwork abilities.
• Outstanding communication abilities, particularly in the areas of facilitation, documentation, and reporting.
• Speaks English and Spanish with ease.
• Strong leadership, persuading, and relationship management abilities.
• Bachelor’s degree, minimum.

 

Essential Skills

• Participant Management: Stakeholders are people or organizations that are interested in a project’s success. Managers responsible for business continuity must be able to recognize stakeholders and comprehend their requirements, goals, and issues. This is crucial because it may assist you in creating plans that include all facets of business continuity planning.
• Change Administration: The capacity to adjust to shifting conditions and events is known as change management. Business continuity managers must be able to handle these changes since they often need to adjust their plans when unanticipated occurrences happen. For instance, if a fire breaks out in an office building where your company keeps its backup data, you may need to swiftly adjust your strategy to consider this new circumstance.
• Problem-solving: This is the ability to identify problems and find solutions. When a crisis or tragedy strikes, you may need to find solutions as a business continuity manager. You may be able to discover a different means to access data or create a new solution, for instance, if your company’s backup system malfunctions.
• Vendor Administration: A business continuity manager has to be well-versed in the suppliers they deal with. Knowing their relationship with their employer, the details needed for communication, and how to overcome obstacles are all examples of this. Having this information will assist guarantee that your business has positive working relationships with its suppliers and that you have the products you want on schedule.
• Management of Risk: The capacity to recognize possible hazards and create mitigation methods is known as risk management. When developing emergency response plans, business continuity managers apply risk management techniques since these plans often incorporate measures to lessen the possibility of certain events or lessen their effects if they do happen. A business continuity manager may, for instance, develop an emergency response plan that outlines how to evacuate staff members from the facility in the event of a fire.
• Making Decisions: A business continuity manager must act swiftly when deciding how to handle crises. They must have the ability to analyze a problem and choose the best course of action for their company. For instance, if an IT system fails, it could choose between restoring data and protecting personnel from damage.
• Leadership: Business continuity managers should have strong leadership qualities since they may inspire and facilitate teamwork among their teams. When making a plan, you also need to have leadership qualities since you need to be able to guide the creation of an efficient plan that everyone on your team can follow. Another essential ability for a business continuity manager to possess is the ability to assign work efficiently.
• Commercial Impact Analysis: Managers of business continuity are in charge of identifying risks and developing plans to lessen their effects on a company. To create strategies that minimize interruption, they employ business impact analysis skills to assess the possible effects of a catastrophe, such as a fire or a flood. A business continuity manager would suggest backup solutions, for instance, if a fire might potentially damage a building’s electrical system so that workers could safely evacuate in an emergency.
• Emergency Preparedness: Since they often supervise the procedure for managing emergencies, business continuity managers must possess emergency management abilities. This involves becoming familiar with workplace fire and safety procedures as well as knowing what to do in case of an emergency outside of the job.
• IT programs: A business continuity manager must be familiar with the IT systems that are used by their organization. This covers their operation, the software and hardware they use, and how they work. A business continuity manager must also be able to upgrade these systems as needed for continued functionality.
• Emergency Recovery: A collection of processes that an organization adheres to in the event of a natural or man-made calamity is known as a disaster recovery plan. The capacity of a business continuity manager to develop and execute these strategies may aid them in ensuring the security of their staff, clients, and property. Additionally, they must be able to act rapidly in an emergency to limit damage and resume normal operations as soon as feasible.
• Project Administration: Business continuity managers need to have project management abilities since they aid in organizing and carrying out disaster response strategies. Another role carried out by business continuity managers is developing a catastrophe recovery plan, where you may employ project management abilities.
• Communication: The capacity for clear and succinct information transfer is referred to as communication. Business continuity managers need to be able to talk about emergency circumstances and contingency plans with their employees, clients, and other stakeholders. They must also be able to communicate difficult ideas to others in an understandable manner.
• Flexibility: The ability to alter course when necessary. When it comes to their tasks and obligations, business continuity managers often need to be adaptable since they may need to switch their attention from one activity to another depending on the circumstance. For instance, a business continuity manager may put aside other activities to attend to an emergency if one arises that needs a quick response.
• Organization: The capacity of the organization is the capacity to monitor documents, data, and other information. You may have to save and access a lot of information about your company’s emergency response procedures or its physical locations in your capacity as a business continuity manager. Being well-organized will enable you to do this assignment successfully. Additionally, it enables you to locate the data you want fast while handling an emergency scenario.

 

How to Become a Business Continuity Manager

• Think about your obligations: You might benefit from taking a quick look at your likely responsibilities before enrolling in academic programs. Your job as a business continuity manager is to safeguard your company against unforeseen catastrophes like data breaches or shortages of raw materials. To guarantee that your company stays profitable, you may create multiple contingency plans that outline the actions that coworkers can do to safeguard production in each eventuality. These strategies could involve stockpile quotas or minimal production objectives. To guarantee that these strategies can continue to successfully counter threats, you may also change them in response to new technology or people.
• Think about your soft talents: Consideration of your soft abilities is the potential next step. You may already have a variety of soft skills relevant to your career path, depending on your personality or previous job experience. If not, you may develop them via volunteer activity, education, and job experience.

Solving problems is a talent that applies to this line of work. Before developing specialized remedies for each problem, it’s critical that you can anticipate possible risks as you prepare and carry out your company’s reaction to a crisis. You might thus more readily address a real crisis in a composed and assured way, lowering the likelihood of complications. Leadership is a further valuable talent. It’s critical to appropriately assign work to younger colleagues depending on their talents if you’re managing your company’s reaction. After that, you may concentrate on organizing these tasks to make sure a crisis response is quick and effective.

• Complete a bachelor’s program: Earning a bachelor’s degree in a relevant subject, such as business, marketing, or data management, is the next step you may take. By attending seminars, lectures, and workshops during your degree, you may get practical technical information that you can then use for your homework or tests. By choosing extra courses that cover the topics you are most interested in, you may also begin to carve yourself into a professional specialization. You may demonstrate to prospective employers that you’re a serious and diligent person by earning a degree.

Numerous British institutions offer bachelor’s degree programs in careers linked to continuity management.

An example would be the three-year (BSc) Business Management program offered by the University of Birmingham. The study plan covers lessons on a variety of continuity management-related subjects, including handling crises and changing with the times. To learn how to put your academic knowledge to use in real-world situations, you might also take a work placement module in your senior year with a nonprofit organization.

• Secure a place at the entry level: You may start applying for entry-level positions in your selected management discipline, such as marketing or accounting, after graduating from college. By using this strategy, you may move from student to professional life more smoothly and without leaving a gap in your CV. Your CV may help you in this case if you modify it to meet the requirements of the positions you’re looking for. You may spend a section, for instance, describing your primary abilities and how you can use them in your everyday job activities.

On the other hand, you may take keywords out of job descriptions and add them to your CV. The recruiter may thus find it simpler to notice you, increasing the likelihood that they will ask you for a formal interview.

• Create a specialty: You might decide to specialize in a particular area of continuity management after becoming established in the field. By adopting this strategy, you may develop a more specialized set of talents that will enable you to do challenging jobs effectively. This can significantly raise the financial worth you have to future employers. You may pursue the necessary professional qualification, which is often governed by a professional organization, to specialize in a particular area of continuity management.

For instance, you may enroll in the Level 5 – Supply Chain and Operations Management curriculum to specialize in preventing supply networks from being disrupted. This course, which is accredited by the Institute of Supply Chain Management, covers topics including developing logistical goals, anticipating supply chain risks, and simulating probable emergencies. On the other hand, you may enroll in the Incident Response and Crisis Management training program if you want to specialize in spotting impending issues and coming up with sensible solutions. This course, which is overseen by the Business Continuity Institute, explains how to apply crisis management concepts to real-world jobs.

 

Where to Work as a Business Continuity Manager

Business continuity managers may be found working in corporate offices, governmental institutions, and consultancy businesses, among other places. During normal business hours, they generally work full-time, but to meet deadlines or address crises, they may also work on the weekends and at the night. Managers of business continuity may travel to see customers or go to conferences. Frequent travel may be required for certain vocations. Business continuity managers need to be able to handle pressure and perform effectively under tight deadlines since the task may be demanding.

 

 Business Continuity Manager Salary Scale

In the USA, a business continuity manager makes an average compensation of $111,500 a year, or $57.18 per hour. Beginning salaries for entry-level jobs are $81,034, while those with the greatest experience may earn up to $146,250 a year.

In the UK, a business continuity manager makes an average pay of £45,325 a year, or £23.24 an hour. Most experienced professionals may earn up to £59,625 per year, while entry-level roles start at £44,166.

Australia’s national average for business continuity manager pay is $116,004 per year or $59.49 per hour. Most experienced professionals earn up to $149,002 per year, while entry-level occupations start at $94,057 annually.

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