'Within my organisation information plays a pivotal role in supporting all aspects of the business, including operations, financial planning, sales and marketing and business strategy. Without this information, whether it is customer details or financial forecasting data, we would find it almost impossible to make clear, well informed decisions. Corruption or misuse of this data is also cause for serious concern since it can result in considerable financial loss, and perhaps more importantly, loss of confidence amongst customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders.

Maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our key business information has become a key target for us and the safeguarding of information is now a top priority. Of course, we understand that there will always be an element of residual risk that cannot be avoided, but at least we are aware of this and are doing everything practicable to protect our organisation's business information.

Over the past year we have invested significant resources into ensuring that our organisation meets current best practice as defined by BS7799 (the second part of ISO17799), the British Standard that sets out the requirements for an Information Security Management System (ISMS), and provides a practical and hands-on route to implementation. The benefits of having such a system are wide ranging; alignment or certification to BS7799 provides peace of mind through clear and effective risk management, helps build confidence amongst all stakeholders in the business, and provides us with a competitive advantage in the market place. More recently, particularly for Government framework contracts, the ability of an organisation to demonstrate its understanding of and adherence to BS7799 has become pivotal to a successful tender. After all, BS7799 also supports key Government legislation such as the Data Protection Act, the Health and Safety Act and the Computer Misuse Act.

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