Batelco, Bahrain’s leading communications company, in line with its business continuity plans, hosted a Business Continuity, Information Security and Risk Management Forum at the Company’s Headquarters in Hamala, Bahrain.
The key forum was attended by a number of Batelco’s senior management including Batelco Bahrain CEO Rashid Abdulla, and experts from external companies – Protiviti, BBK and Bureau Veritas.
Batelco organised the forum for the first time to achieve a number of aims leading to the overall enhancement of its Business Continuity programme. Key among the goals of the forum were to Improve understanding and implementation of best practices to relevant stakeholders; to Improve integration and communication among Assurance Functions (Business Continuity Management, Internal Audit, Compliance) and other business units; to Communicate global concern in Business Continuity, Information Security, and Risk Management topics and to provide the opportunity for benchmarking Batelco practices and experiences shared by speakers.
Batelco Bahrain Chief Executive Rashid Abdulla addressed the gathering, welcoming all the participants and extending appreciation to the representatives of the external companies for their support by making informed presentations.
“Batelco considers Business Continuity, Information Security & Risk Management critical elements to ensure the delivery of telecom service in the event of disasters. Being updated and implementing up-to-date best practices and standards are crucial to Batelco,” Abdulla, said.
Presentations were given by Protiviti, Associate Director for Internal Audit & Risk Advisory Function, Sarit Bose; Protiviti Regional Head of BCM Services Muhammad Ghazali; BBK Head of Business Continuity Management & Governance Wasim J. Malik and Bureau Veritas Management Systems Practitioner Govindarajan Srinivasan.
The subject of the four presentations covered devising a Strategic Roadmap for Telco’s to Secure the Enterprise and Reduce Risk; Cyber Crime and Information Security Governance Challenges; Business Continuity Management Trends and Crisis Management and ISO 22301.
“Batelco has a firmly established Business Continuity Programme in place and by holding such events as this forum helps to ensure the Company adheres to accepted international best practices, thus enabling the Company to stay resilient in the face of any crisis which could otherwise impact negatively on delivery of services to its valued customers,” Batelco in a statement said.