In today’s liberalized and competitive economy, organizations are becoming increasingly less tolerant of lapses in service and a proper design to reduce the risk from an unexpected disruption. As more businesses look at outsourcing, organizations that can continue to deliver services at the agreed levels and without disruptions, will continue to thrive. In an age of digitization, cloud based services and imminent cyber threats, the real challenge with the business's preparedness to survive a major disaster and continued functioning.

Business Continuity is a framework for identifying an organization’s risk of exposure to internal and external threats. A company that assesses and priorities risks in a methodical way will be in a better situation to cope with any prevailing disaster or crisis. A predefined business continuity plan, combined with the proper insurance coverage, maximizes the chance of a successful recovery by eliminating hasty decision-making under stressful conditions. Thus Business continuity enhances sustainability and is an important segment of the risk strategy.

Two thirds of the surveyed organizations in Africa have a Business Continuity program but more than half have not implemented it completely or have not reviewed the same in last 3 years. Roughly, 61% of the organizations in Africa did not follow BCM standards and less than 2% organizations are BCM certified.

The Ebola outbreak is an classic example of lack of preparedness and bounce back management, thus resulting in ineffective emergency response which effected all business units and hindered business continuity and resulted in chaos and loss. With a vision of not repeating past errors, African business sector understands the need of developing a strong BCM segment within the organization, so as to eradicate and cope with any internal or external disaster.

IT Disaster Recovery planning is the top priority and main concern of African Business leaders. As Africa is becoming business destination with approx US$ 55billion in annual foreign capital inflows the continent, industry leaders are aggressive on implementing BCM, certifications and following BCM standards and proceedings without any delay.

Keeping the current scenario in mind, Fleming Gulf, with its successful history of BCM conferences in Middle East, will host the African Business Continuity & Emergency Response Summit, on the 18 – 19th of August 2015, at Johannesburg – South Africa.

This summit will gather industry peers and decision makers and government officials from eThekwini Municipality, Tshwane Municipality, City of Johannesburg, South Africa Medical Rescue Organisation, BP, Government Pensions Administration Agency, Transnet, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Barclays Africa, Eskom and many more to discuss the important aspects of crisis or disaster management such as challenges or risks, government response, technological infrastructure, communication aspects and social media in the recent years.

Through exclusive speaker presentations, intriguing case-studies, interactive panel discussions and extension networking sessions this summit will aim to help start building the complete frame work of making Africa a resilient nation.