"Over the coming years, the African business industry will have to place increasing emphasis on integrating resilience disciplines as a way to achieve efficiency and competitiveness. In this global economy, organizations will have to adopt a more proactive approach to manage more complex threats which may cause large and sometime unprecedented events. This proactive approach will certainly ensure the success in identifying complexity in the risk environment, reducing downtime and impact on the image and reputation of organizations. Definitely this new environment will provide more opportunities for BCM professionals." stated Slyvain Prefumo, Head Business Continuity Planning, State Bank of Mauritius during an interview on how he perceives the future of African business industry with successful implementation of BCM and Disaster Management.

Slyvain Prefumo will be elaborating on the importance of disaster preparedness at the African Business Continuity & Emergency Response Summit 2015, which will be taking place on 18-19 August, 2015 at Hyatt Regency Rose Bank Hotel, Johannesburg – South Africa.

Identifying the need for BCM and deciding to implement the same within organization, enhances the risk of completely different set of challenges, owing to the proceedings of developing and integrating BCM channels within the structure. According to Henk Kleynhans, Emergency Services Coordinator - Anglo American, “The first challenge is to ensure that business owners/employer does not see BCM as a new flavor of the month, a separate management system that requires additional resources and monitoring, BCM should be integrated into existing systems such as Emergency preparedness and response, maintenance etc. Communicate and train participants to look at three dimensions namely, preventative, during actual emergency and after the emergency, moreover the interventions required for preventative and ability to start or continue production after the actual emergency. The lurking risks that need to be considered include but not limited to: • Health and Safety • Legal • Reputation • Community • Loss of production”. Pieter VanColler,Occupational Business Continuity, Emergency Response & Hygienist Manager - Anglo American, will be presenting at the summit.

According to another industry speaker at the summit - Dika Modise, Manager Information Risk, Security & Compliance – Eskom “ BCM used to take a back seat in the past but executive have seen the need to start putting it on the board agenda to get the assurance that all that is possible it being done to ensure that business can continue in case of emergency and that employees are prepared to respond to emergencies.” Modise will emphasis on the ICT Failures and focus on how IT service continuity and business continuity should co-exist. His presentation session will focus on:
• ICT Vision 2020 & national Development Plan: Vision 2030
• Upgrading Operational side of IT Infrastructure
• Directing ICT Programs & Investments

Industry experts throughout Africa are eager to implement BCM and Disaster Management strategies as a priority factor for their survival and growth. Partnered by Focus Africa and Rhula Intelligent Solutions as Risk Management Partners while Clearview is the Exhibition Partner, this conference which will aim to uphold the need and importance of establishing and implementing BCM process within the organization, to combat and cope with any internal or external threat or crisis.