Operational continuity refers to the ability of a system to continue working despite damages, losses or critical events. In the Human Resources and Organizational domain, including IT, it implies the need to determine the level of resilience of the system, its ability to recover after an event, and build a system that resists to external and internal events or is able to recover after an event without losing its external performance management capability. Organizational Continuity is achieved only with specific corporate planning. [1] In the material domain, it determines the need to adopt redundant systems, performance monitoring systems, and can even imply the practice to cannibalize or to remove serviceable assemblies, sub-assemblies or components from a repairable or serviceable item of equipment in order to install them on another, in order to keep the external system performance active. [2] Operational continuity may be referred to single systems, single individuals, up to teams or entire complex systems such as IT infrastructures, implying the ability of an organization or system to continue to provide its mission.
Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities.
An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in contrast to public networks, such as the Internet, but uses the same technology based on the Internet protocol suite.
Business continuity may be defined as "the capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products or services at pre-defined acceptable levels following a disruptive incident", and business continuity planning is the process of creating systems of prevention and recovery to deal with potential threats to a company. In addition to prevention, the goal is to enable ongoing operations before and during execution of disaster recovery. Business continuity is the intended outcome of proper execution of both business continuity planning and disaster recovery.
An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing also attempts to ensure that the books of accounts are properly maintained by the concern as required by law. Auditors consider the propositions before them, obtain evidence, and evaluate the propositions in their auditing report.
A management information system (MIS) is an information system used for decision-making, and for the coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organization. The study of the management information systems involves people, processes and technology in an organizational context.
A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined start and a defined finish; regardless of industry. Project managers are first point of contact for any issues or discrepancies arising from within the heads of various departments in an organization before the problem escalates to higher authorities, as project representative.
Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a disruptive and unexpected event that threatens to harm the organization or its stakeholders. The study of crisis management originated with large-scale industrial and environmental disasters in the 1980s. It is considered to be the most important process in public relations.
Information management (IM) concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal through archiving or deletion.
Engineering management is the application of the practice of management to the practice of engineering. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering driven enterprises. A Master of Engineering Management (MEM) is sometimes compared to a Master of Business Administration (MBA) for professionals seeking a graduate degree as a qualifying credential for a career in engineering management.
Disaster recovery is the process of maintaining or reestablishing vital infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster, such as a storm or battle. It employs policies, tools, and procedures. Disaster recovery focuses on the information technology (IT) or technology systems supporting critical business functions as opposed to business continuity. This involves keeping all essential aspects of a business functioning despite significant disruptive events; it can therefore be considered a subset of business continuity. Disaster recovery assumes that the primary site is not immediately recoverable and restores data and services to a secondary site.
Operational risk is the risk of losses caused by flawed or failed processes, policies, systems or events that disrupt business operations. Employee errors, criminal activity such as fraud, and physical events are among the factors that can trigger operational risk. The process to manage operational risk is known as operational risk management. The definition of operational risk, adopted by the European Solvency II Directive for insurers, is a variation adopted from the Basel II regulations for banks: "The risk of a change in value caused by the fact that actual losses, incurred for inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems, or from external events, differ from the expected losses". The scope of operational risk is then broad, and can also include other classes of risks, such as fraud, security, privacy protection, legal risks, physical or environmental risks. Operational risks similarly may impact broadly, in that they can affect client satisfaction, reputation and shareholder value, all while increasing business volatility.
Given organizations' increasing dependency on information technology to run their operations, Business continuity planning covers the entire organization, and Disaster recovery focuses on IT.
Project portfolio management (PPM) is the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The objectives of PPM are to determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and to schedule activities to best achieve an organization’s operational and financial goals, while honouring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors. Standards for Portfolio Management include Project Management Institute's framework for project portfolio management, Management of Portfolios by Office of Government Commerce and the PfM² Portfolio Management Methodology by the PM² Foundation.
Internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organization's operations. It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance processes. Internal auditing might achieve this goal by providing insight and recommendations based on analyses and assessments of data and business processes. With commitment to integrity and accountability, internal auditing provides value to governing bodies and senior management as an objective source of independent advice. Professionals called internal auditors are employed by organizations to perform the internal auditing activity.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to management:
Governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) is the term covering an organization's approach across these three practices: governance, risk management, and compliance. The first scholarly research on GRC was published in 2007 where GRC was formally defined as "the integrated collection of capabilities that enable an organization to reliably achieve objectives, address uncertainty and act with integrity." The research referred to common "keep the company on track" activities conducted in departments such as internal audit, compliance, risk, legal, finance, IT, HR as well as the lines of business, executive suite and the board itself.
Internal control, as defined by accounting and auditing, is a process for assuring of an organization's objectives in operational effectiveness and efficiency, reliable financial reporting, and compliance with laws, regulations and policies. A broad concept, internal control involves everything that controls risks to an organization.
In the United States, the hospital incident command system (HICS) is an incident command system (ICS) designed for hospitals and intended for use in both emergency and non-emergency situations. It provides hospitals of all sizes with tools needed to advance their emergency preparedness and response capability—both individually and as members of the broader response community.
Enterprise performance management (EPM) is a field of business performance management which considers the visibility of operations in a closed-loop model across all facets of the enterprise. Specific to financial activities in the office of the chief financial officer, EPM also supports financial planning and analysis (FP&A). Corporate performance management (CPM) is a synonym for enterprise performance management. Gartner has officially retired the concept of CPM and reclassified into "financial planning and analysis (FP&A)" and "financial close" to reflect two significant trends – increased focus on planning, and the emergence of a new category of solutions supporting the management of the financial close.
The Stephenson Disaster Management Institute at Louisiana State University is located in the Stephenson National Center for Security Research and Training at LSU.