Managing business continuity in the Arctic: Experiences from mining.

Area of Science:

• Business Continuity Management
• Risk Assessment
• Organizational Resilience

Background:

• Organizations often assume safety experience translates to business continuity.
• Arctic operations face unique challenges, including delayed emergency response.
• A case study of a flooded mine highlights potential gaps in recovery capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a model for analyzing business continuity capacity gaps.
• To investigate how experience influences an organization's ability to recover critical activities.
• To determine the extent of improved business continuity capacity through systematic safety work and flood experience.

Main Methods:

• Development of a business continuity capacity model.
• Case study analysis of Store Norske Spitsbergen Coal Company (SNSK) during a flooding event.
• Exploration of the transferability of safety and incident management skills to new events.

Main Results:

• Despite extensive safety experience, SNSK faced challenges in managing a flooding event.
• Existing safety and incident management expertise did not automatically ensure business continuity.
• The study identified a need for organizations to continuously update risk assessments for known threats.

Conclusions:

• Systematic safety work, including risk identification and competency development, is crucial for business continuity.
• Organizations must remain vigilant to changes affecting risk assessments, even for familiar events.
• Insights gained can help other organizations improve both safety and business continuity performance.