A week of audits

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This week we had a virtual 3 day "visit" from an auditor from the Bsi.

This was our 3 year certification for our iso27001 registration.

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ISO27001 - The standard for Information Security

Iso27001 is the standard for information security but its scope is far wider than that. One key item in the standard relates to Business Continuity.

As part of our original certification we had to document all of our processes (we now have documentation relating to pretty much every business process - even those outside the scope of iso27001).

One key process we had to consider and document was disaster recovery - particularly physical disaster relating to our offices. Basically, what would happen if our offices were suddenly put out of action!

Not only do we have to document the process, we have to test it. In our case we test it 3 times a year.

Disaster Recovery Testing

The last "test' was in Feb 2020.

Which put us in good stead when I made the decision in mid March to close our offices due to the pandemic that was just starting to develop around us.

For me, it was simple - a quick conversation with my operations director to make the decision. All she then did was send a message to her managers and it then perculated across the business from there.

Planning and Testing makes the real thing simple

The message was sent out at 7am - basically "don't come to work today - the offices are closed". The same message we sent out 4 weeks before in our last test.

There was no panic, no hassle, none of our customers noticed that nobody was at the office.

This was all down to careful planning - designing the business so that we could still work effectively and transfer to home working quickly and easily.

So whilst many would have seen a 3 day audit as being a real pain, as well as the 6 monthly interim audits, internal audits and process reviews - i am delighted to take the time out to ensure that we are fully compliant.

Being certified gives me, my team and my customers assurance that we are fully set up to ensure that they can serve their customers, sell cars and deliver quality service

and we are delighted to be able to display the Kitemark to prove it.