CBCP-002 Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) Questions and Answers

Continuity planning with external stakeholders, such as key suppliers, is essential to ensure the uninterrupted flow of information, materials, products, and services during disruptions. The type of continuity planning determines the nature of the relationship and coordination with these suppliers:

Multilateral: This involves multiple parties (e.g., an organization and several suppliers or partners) working together in a coordinated plan. While multilateral planning can enhance collaboration across a broad network, it is complex and not specifically tailored to strengthening individual supplier relationships, which is the focus of this question.

Bilateral: This refers to a two-party agreement or plan between the organization and a specific supplier. Bilateral continuity planning fosters a direct, functioning relationship with key suppliers, enabling mutual understanding, aligned recovery strategies, and stronger assurances of continuous supply. It is the most effective approach for building robust, one-on-one supplier relationships, as it allows for tailored coordination and commitments.

Unilateral: This is a one-sided plan where the organization develops its continuity strategy without direct supplier involvement. While it may address internal resilience, it does not enhance the functioning relationship with suppliers or provide assurances of their continuity, making it inadequate for this purpose.

The correct answer isB. Bilateral, as it directly enhances the relationship with key suppliers through mutual planning and coordination, ensuring a continuous supply chain. This aligns with Business Continuity Professional practices that emphasize collaboration with critical external dependencies.

References:

DRI International Professional Practices for Business Continuity Management (2023), Section 4: Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessment – Highlights the importance of engaging key suppliers in continuity planning.

ISO 22301:2019, Clause 8.2.3 – Emphasizes identifying and managing dependencies, including suppliers, through coordinated planning.

Milestones are important events in a project that mark the completion of a major deliverable or the achievement of a key goal. They are a good time to check in with employees and management to see how they are feeling about the project, and to get their feedback on how things are going. This is also a good time to reinforce the importance of the project and to get everyone re-committed to its success.

The other three options are not as good times to maximize on the employees' new awareness and management support. Timelines are important, but they are not as important as milestones in terms of getting people's attention. Benchmarks are useful for tracking progress, but they are not as good for getting people's buy-in. Structure is important for organizing a project, but it is not as important as milestones for motivating people.

So, the answer to the question is that the milestones phase of the project is the time to maximize on the employees' new awareness and management support.

Here are some specific things that you can do at the milestones phase to maximize on employee awareness and management support:

Hold a team meeting to celebrate the milestone and to discuss the next steps.

Send out a communication to all employees and managers, highlighting the milestone and thanking everyone for their hard work.

Meet with management to discuss the project's progress and to get their feedback.

Use the milestone as an opportunity to reinforce the importance of the project and to get everyone re-committed to its success.

Corporate governance is the system of rules, practices, and processes by which an organization is directed and controlled. It involves balancing the interests of various stakeholders, such as shareholders, management, customers, suppliers, regulators, and the community. It also enables an organization to balance risk and entrepreneurial energy with appropriate internal control procedures to manage that risk. Effective corporate governance can enhance performance, accountability, transparency, and trust. Verified References: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corporategovernance.asp https://www.thebci.org/training-qualifications/good-practice-guidelines.html

A disaster can also be declared for an illness pandemic where a significant portion of employees are sick. This is true because an illness pandemic is a type of natural disaster that can affect an organization’s ability to continue its normal operations. An illness pandemic can cause absenteeism, reduced productivity, increased costs, supply chain disruptions, customer dissatisfaction, or regulatory compliance issues. Therefore, an organization may need to declare a disaster and activate its business continuity and disaster recovery plan if an illness pandemic impacts its critical functions and processes beyond an acceptable level. Verified References: https://www.ready.gov/business-continuity-plan https://www.csoonline.com/article/515730/business-continuity-and-disaster-recovery-planning-the-basics.html

The four R’s are action approaches for crisis and post-crisis management. They are:

Reduction: This approach aims to prevent or mitigate the occurrence or impact of a crisis by identifying and addressing the root causes, vulnerabilities, and risks.

Readiness: This approach aims to prepare for a potential crisis by developing plans, policies, procedures, systems, teams, and resources that can enable a timely and effective response.

Response: This approach aims to manage a crisis by activating the plans, policies, procedures, systems, teams, and resources that can contain, control, and resolve the situation.

Recovery: This approach aims to restore normal operations after a crisis by implementing actions that can repair damages, restore functions and processes, resume services and products, recover losses, and learn lessons. Verified References: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/hybrid-work/what-is-business-continuity.html https://phoenixnap.com/blog/what-is-business-continuity-management

In the event of a disaster that destroys the physical office site operations will be relocated to a temporary site. This is true because one of the recovery strategies for a disaster is to have an alternate site where the critical functions and processes can be resumed until the primary site is restored or replaced. The alternate site can be a pre-arranged location, such as a rented office space, a hotel, or another branch of the same organization, or a mobile facility, such as a trailer or a container. The alternate site should have the necessary equipment, systems, data, and resources to support the continuity of the business. Verified References: https://www.ready.gov/business-continuity-plan https://www.csoonline.com/article/515730/business-continuity-and-disaster-recovery-planning-the-basics.html

A disaster lasting longer than seventy-two (72) hours requires implementation of a business continuity and disaster recovery plan. A business continuity and disaster recovery plan is a comprehensive document that outlines how an organization will respond to and recover from adisaster that disrupts its normal operations. It covers both the IT aspects (disaster recovery) and the business aspects (business continuity) of restoring the critical functions and processes within an acceptable time frame. A disaster lasting longer than seventy-two (72) hours is likely to have significant impacts on the organization’s performance, reputation, assets, and stakeholders, and therefore requires a coordinated and structured approach to ensure its survival and resilience. Verified References: https://www.ready.gov/business-continuity-plan https://www.csoonline.com/article/515730/business-continuity-and-disaster-recovery-planning-the-basics.html

A full-scale exercise is a type of exercise that involves all teams. A full-scale exercise is a high-pressure exercise that simulates a realistic scenario of a disruption that affects all or most of the organization’s functions and processes. A full-scale exercise tests the effectiveness and efficiency of the plans, procedures, systems, teams, and resources that are required to respond to and recover from a disruption. A full-scale exercise also evaluates the coordination and communication among all the teams and stakeholders involved. Verified References: https://www.ready.gov/business-continuity-plan https://www.csoonline.com/article/515730/business-continuity-and-disaster-recovery-planning-the-basics.html

Strategic management is the type of management that is an often used term, but has so many different connotations to different people that invariably the message of its meaning gets confused. Strategic management is the process of defining and executing the long-term vision, goals, plans, and actions of an organization. Strategic management involves analyzing the internal and external environment, formulating strategies, implementing them, and evaluating their outcomes. Strategic management can be complex and challenging, as it requires alignment and integration of various aspects of the organization, such as culture, structure, resources, capabilities, stakeholders, markets, competitors, or regulations. Verified References: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/strategic-management.asp https://phoenixnap.com/blog/what-is-business-continuity-management