DRI International’s Participation in the RIMS-PERK
DRI INTERNATIONAL
By AL BERMAN, CBCP
The Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc. (RIMS) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the practice of risk management. Founded in 1950, RIMS represents more than 3,500 industrial,
service, non-profit, charitable and governmental entities. The
society serves more than 10,000 risk management
professionals around the world. The membership
of RIMS is made up of corporate members who
are affiliated with local chapters and divided into
regions. The chapters meet on a regular basis and
the regions usually hold annual conferences.
Douglas Barlow, a pioneer in the risk management profession, who actually coined the term “risk
management” in the 1950’s famously once said,
“All management is risk management.” Barlow was
obviously ahead of his time and his perceptive view
of the management of risk has now evolved into
today’s “enterprise risk management” model of the
management of risk.
It is this concept of enterprise risk management
that brings us to the point of assessing the interdependencies of many disciplines within an organization and changing management practices to add
value to the overall organization, rather than having
different disciplines competing for ever scarcer
resources within the organization. The practice of
business continuity is an integral part of the enterprise risk management process and helps to explain
the close relationship between the two organizations.
Disaster recovery had its roots in the early 1980’s
as computers began to drive more and more of commerce and industry. Concerns of the business impact
of major computer outages or failures led to individuals creating procedures for protecting data and
applications. The Disaster Recovery Journal and
the Disaster Recovery Institute International were
the offshoot of this movement, a forum to exchange
information and ideas and a not-for-profit organization to certify
individual’s knowledge and experience in this growing discipline.
In the mid 1990s it became apparent that DR had to expand to
cover more than just computer/IT failures. Around this time DR
began to expand into business continuity ( BC) where the focus
was on recovering the entire “enterprise”, not just a single business function.
In 1995 the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
issued NFPA 1600 as a recommended document on emergency
management and business continuity. This document would
become an ANSI-recognized standard in 2000. Now we see
emergency management (EM) included with DR and BC. The
next stage in the concept brought DR, BC, EM and now crisis
management (CM) into a process called business continuity
management. All the while the DRI International Professional
Practices for Business Continuity Practitioners, the tenets of
The relationship between the DRI International
and RIMS began several years ago as an examina-
tion of the synergies between the two professional
disciplines, which are numerous. The advent of the
concept of enterprise risk management along with
the ever growing interest in disaster recovery/busi-
ness continuity management provided for a natural
partnership.
BCM, kept current with these changes. Logically,
the next step was to incorporate BCM and risk management into the overall process of enterprise-wide
management.
The dramatic growth
of both ERM and
BCM is not just a
trend here in the US,
but is evident on a
global basis. The
training, certification,
experience and
skill sets of both
professions are of
increasing value to
organizations in our
global economy.
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Alan Berman is a CBCP, is a member of the ASIS BS25999 technical committee, a
member of the Committee of Experts for ANSI-ANAB, a former member of the NY City
Partnership for Security and Risk Management, executive director for Disaster Recovery
Institute and the co-chair for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation committee to create the new
standard for the US Private Sector Preparedness Act (PL 110-53).
