Business continuity management: your best ally to mitigate the impact on your operations

What it is about

Mariana Quirós, business continuity director (MBCP) at Copa Airlines, explained at the Third Annual Risk Conference (September 2025) why the success of a business continuity program depends as much on people as on methodology.

The 22 slides start from the case of the global CrowdStrike outage (July 2024) and how continuity helps mitigate the impact on punctuality and finances, and propose building a continuity culture based on the ISO 22301 standard, a gap analysis (surveys, interviews, focus groups) and a change management strategy with communication, listening, recognition and training plans.

Objectives

• Show the value of business continuity in mitigating the impact of a global event.
• Explain why a continuity culture is as important as the standard and the methodology.
• Propose a change management strategy and how to measure the program.

Key takeaways

1. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity: continuity prepares the organization before the event occurs.
2. An organization's culture shows in the behavior of its teams, and changing behavior requires understanding people's thinking, feeling and interpretation.
3. International professional practices and the ISO 22301 standard provide a solid methodological base for implementing the program.
4. The change management strategy combines a communication ("telling") plan, a listening plan, recognition, training and gradual empowerment.
5. The program is measured with execution, performance and compliance indicators (scope, recovery times, drills, plan maintenance and closing of remediations).