Training Course: Executive Business Continuity, Crisis Management & ISO 22301 Course with Shipping Simulation

Introduction:

Executive business continuity, crisis management and ISO 22301 alignment form the senior discipline of keeping an organisation's critical activities running through disruption and leading its response when an event threatens people, assets, reputation or strategy. This 5-day course is for executives, managers and professionals in logistics, shipping, ports, supply chain, risk and resilience functions, and delegates finish with an Executive Continuity and Crisis Leadership Playbook. It is taught at an advanced, decision-making level and ends with a logistics and shipping tabletop simulation, drawing on ISO 22301:2019, the international standard that sets requirements for a business continuity management system.

Course Objectives:

• Distinguish business continuity management from crisis management, and define where executive accountability for each sits in the organisation
• Interpret the requirements of ISO 22301:2019 and the guidance in ISO 22313 to direct and oversee a business continuity management system
• Compare recovery time objectives with recovery point objectives and apply business impact analysis results to set continuity priorities for logistics activities
• Select continuity strategies and solutions for ports, vessels, warehouses and supplier networks, and justify their cost against tolerated disruption
• Apply crisis leadership, decision-making and stakeholder communication practices drawn from ISO 22361:2022 during an escalating logistics or shipping event
• Justify an Executive Continuity and Crisis Leadership Playbook tested through a port, vessel and supply chain tabletop simulation

Target Audience:

• Executives and board-level leaders in logistics and shipping organisations who set continuity policy and decide the level of disruption the organisation will tolerate
• Port, terminal and fleet operations managers who own critical activities and decide recovery priorities when berths, vessels or equipment become unavailable
• Supply chain and procurement managers who oversee carriers, forwarders and key suppliers and judge which dependencies need alternative sources
• Risk, resilience and business continuity professionals who run the management system and decide how analysis findings become plans, exercises and reports to leadership
• Corporate communication, legal and HSSE professionals who join crisis teams and judge what to disclose, to whom and when during an incident

Course Outline:

Day 1: Foundations: Executive Accountability for Continuity and Crisis Readiness

• Business Continuity vs Crisis Management: Scope, Time Horizon and Executive Ownership
• Organisational Resilience in Logistics: Ports, Fleets, Warehouses and Carrier Networks
• Disruption Landscape Review: Port Closure, Vessel Casualty, Cyber Outage and Supplier Failure
• Incident vs Crisis: Escalation Criteria and Thresholds for Senior Leadership Involvement
• Continuity Maturity Assessment: Scoring Current Plans, Teams, Exercises and Executive Oversight

Day 2: Standards: ISO 22301 Governance and the Management System Structure

• ISO 22301 vs ISO 22313: Requirements Standard Compared With Its Implementation Guidance
• Context of the Organisation: Interested Parties, Legal Obligations and BCMS Scope Decisions
• Leadership and Commitment Clause: Continuity Policy, Roles and Top Management Responsibilities
• Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle: How ISO 22301 Structures Planning, Operation and Improvement
• Management Review and Internal Audit: Board Reporting on Continuity Performance and Gaps

Day 3: Application: Business Impact Analysis, Risk Appetite and Continuity Strategy Selection

• Business Impact Analysis Method: Prioritised Activities, Impact Categories and Time-Based Escalation
• RTO vs RPO: Recovery Time and Data Loss Targets for Logistics Systems
• Risk Appetite and Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption: Setting Limits for Critical Port and Shipping Activities
• Continuity Strategies and Solutions: Alternate Berths, Rerouting, Spare Capacity and Dual Sourcing
• Business Continuity Plans Structure: Activation Triggers, Recovery Procedures and Resource Requirements

Day 4: Analysis: Crisis Leadership, Communication and Supply Chain Dependencies

• Strategic vs Tactical Crisis Team: Decision Rights, Membership and Escalation Paths Explained
• ISO 22361:2022 Crisis Management Guidelines: Leadership Principles, Structures and Decision Support
• Crisis Communication Planning: Holding Statements, Spokesperson Roles and Stakeholder Mapping Under Pressure
• Supplier and Carrier Dependency Mapping: Single Points of Failure Across Multimodal Chains
• Exercise Planning: Discussion-Based vs Operational Exercises and Lessons-Learned Tracking

Day 5: Simulation: Leading a Logistics and Shipping Tabletop Crisis Response

• Port Closure Scenario: Activating Continuity Plans and Reallocating Berths and Cargo Flows
• Vessel Incident Scenario: Crisis Team Decisions, Casualty Response and Media Communication
• Supply Chain Disruption Injects: Carrier Failure, Terminal Cyber Outage and Customer Commitments
• Hot Debrief vs After-Action Review: Capturing Decisions, Timelines and Communication Gaps
• Executive Continuity and Crisis Leadership Playbook: Governance, Priorities, Teams and Exercise Calendar

Skills You Will Gain:

• Continuity Governance Oversight
• Business Impact Analysis Review
• Recovery Objective Setting
• Continuity Strategy Evaluation
• Crisis Team Leadership
• Stakeholder Crisis Communication
• Supply Chain Dependency Mapping
• Tabletop Exercise Facilitation

Why Attend This Course:

• From treating continuity as a technical file held by one department to directing it as a governed management system with clear executive ownership
• From reacting to port closures and vessel incidents case by case to escalating them through defined thresholds and a standing crisis team
• From recovery targets set by habit to priorities grounded in business impact analysis and tolerated periods of disruption
• From untested plans to presenting an Executive Continuity and Crisis Leadership Playbook proven in a logistics and shipping tabletop simulation

Conclusion:

Business continuity and crisis management at executive level means governing how an organisation protects its critical activities and leads decisively when disruption becomes a threat to its strategy or reputation. The course makes three distinctions clear: continuity management versus crisis management, recovery time versus recovery point objectives, and strategic versus tactical crisis teams. It suits executives, managers and experienced risk, resilience and operations professionals in logistics, shipping, ports and supply chains who need to oversee an ISO 22301-aligned system and lead a crisis response with confidence.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

What should delegates know before joining an executive business continuity and crisis management course?

Delegates should understand how their organisation's logistics, shipping or supply chain operations run and have some exposure to risk or incident decisions. No earlier ISO 22301 study is needed; the course explains the standard's structure before applying it in analysis and simulation.

How does an executive business continuity and crisis management course differ from a general or certification-focused continuity course?

It focuses on governance, executive decisions and crisis leadership rather than step-by-step plan writing or exam preparation. Delegates oversee an ISO 22301-aligned system, judge analysis results and lead a logistics and shipping tabletop simulation instead of drafting procedures line by line.

Why does ISO 22301 matter for business continuity and crisis management in logistics and shipping?

ISO 22301 gives a common, auditable structure for deciding which activities matter most, how fast they must recover and who leads. In logistics and shipping, where ports, vessels and carriers depend on one another, that structure helps partners align priorities during disruption.

What do delegates take back to work from an executive business continuity and crisis management course?

Delegates take back an Executive Continuity and Crisis Leadership Playbook: governance roles, escalation thresholds, recovery priorities, crisis team structure, communication templates and an exercise calendar, refined through the port closure, vessel incident and supply chain disruption simulation.