Preparing for Business Continuity through New Federal “PS-Prep” Certification

Challenge: Reviews of business continuity processes are not easily evaluated or benchmarked against current regulations or comparable organizations.

Solution: Evolving out of 9-11 and gaining greater relevancy after the Japanese disasters, beginning in late 2011 Private Sector Preparedness (PS-Prep) voluntary accreditation is being implemented in the US with a process similar to an ISO audit. Using this PS-PREP standard as a basis for internal audit reviews will soon be the compliance standard. Its use will lend credibility to an internal audit review, as well as assist a company in compliance and/or accreditation.

GAP professionals have been trained in this new standard and can assist in applying it to internal audits of Business Continuity Planning/ Disaster Recovery (BCP/DR) activities and assessing the integration of BCP and DR programs into company operations. Finally, GAP Resources professional, Ted Kozenko, is certified in the use of an online PS-PREP assessment tool which provides a standard approach to measure an organization’s business continuity program’s maturity, identify improvement opportunities and benchmark data to other organizations.

Benefits: Internal audit departments or compliance organizations can carry out their audits utilizing industry standards providing additional value to the organizational and creditability to the Internal Audit.