CASSANDRA (Continuity And Security for SMEs Active in Neutralizing Dangers and Risks affecting their Activities) Erasmus Project

Project Title

CASSANDRA (Continuity And Security for SMEs Active in Neutralizing Dangers and Risks affecting their Activities)

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

Keep Your Business Going!

Everything we do involves risk. Being able to manage risks is a life or death criterion for every enterprise. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) require a practical approach for acquiring necessary knowledge in the area of risk management and for applying this knowledge in a cost-effective way as directly and quickly as possible.

It is to this end that the CASSANDR approach has been developed. It offers professional support to fundamentally improve the resilience of SMEs against risks and threats. The CASSANDRA approach includes a ‘Quick Check Tool’, a ‘Guide’ and an ‘Online Course’ on business resilience. These 3 products are available free online and are simply structured, practical, intelligibly written and tailored to the specific needs of SMEs.

All the CASSANDRA products are available here in English, German, Italian, Greek and Czech: www.cassandra-resilience.eu.

The CASSANDRA approach was created by the CASSANDRA strategic partnership comprised of 6 project partners: emcra GmbH (Germany, lead partner), Tournis Consulting (Greece), the Cyprus Project Management Society, T-SOFT (Czech Republic), the Regional Association of Craftmanship of the Italian region of South Tyrol (Landesverbands der Handwerker Bozen) and the German Institute of Business Consulting, Business Development and Business Research (IBWF). The partnership has a balanced mix of partners who are competent in business resilience and/or who represent the users (SMEs) and/or who are experienced in education and IT products. Without considering their roles in the project, they all share the common vision of making business resilience disciplines known, accessible and affordable for virtually all SMEs in the business services sector across Europe.

What is business resilience and why is it necessary?
Business resilience is an overarching term for 3 disciplines formalised by international standards: risk management (ISO 31000), business continuity (ISO 22301) and information security (ISO/IEC 27001). Business Resilience can be defined as the ability to absorb the impact of an interruption, disruption or loss to business and continue to provide an acceptable level of service. This ability is not obtained by chance, rather it is the observable result of proactive planning. Unfortunately, SMEs – and especially micro-sized enterprises – suffer from a lack of awareness, skills and knowledge about these disciplines and their staff have very little time to invest in reading complex guidelines or completing long training courses! Despite this, business resilience is fundamental to the survival of any enterprise. In Europe, only 44% of all enterprises survive more than five years according to Eurostat business demographic statistics. A “lack of planning” has been identified as one of the top reasons for business failure.

How are risk management and business continuity related?
‘Risks’ are probabilities of events that may have specific impacts which, if realised, could severely or lethally damage the capability of SMEs to operate, provide their services and products to their clients or protect the interests of their stakeholders. Identifying, understanding and dealing with these risks by deploying appropriate measures and thereby minimising the probability or impact of them occurring is called ‘risk management’. However, deploying specific measures to mitigate risks may not always prevent negative incidents. In such a case, SMEs need a strong ‘Business Continuity Plan’; a plan which details how they would respond to and manage a risk or threat if it were to become a reality. Only 30% of small and medium-sized enterprises have such plan in place.

Through its ‘Quick Check Tool’, ‘Guide’ and ‘Online Course’, the CASSANDRA approach has helped SME managers, executives and other employees to raise the business resilience of their companies during this project’s implementation. More than 100 people have already tested the beta versions of the 3 CASSANDRA outputs. The ‘Guide’ and ‘Online Course’ have been praised for their clarity, thoroughness, practicality and usefulness; the ‘Quick Check Tool’ for its user-friendliness.

Following the project’s completion, the CASSANDRA approach will be promoted and disseminated to about 50,000 SME managers, executives and other employees from the business services sector in Europe. Once these individuals have become knowledgeable, skilled and competent with regards to business resilience, they will be able to develop and deploy new or improved risk management strategies and continuity plans for their enterprises. The long-term benefits for these enterprises include the avoidance of identified risks, or if this is not the case, a reduction in their probability and/or impact, meaning that SMEs will be better prepared to face crises and disruptions. Once these SMEs have become more resilient to incidents and disruptions, they will be more sustainable and competitive.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 298310 Eur

Project Coordinator

emcra GmbH & Country: DE

Project Partners

• TOURNIS SYMVOULEFTIKI EE
• LVH Bildung & Service Gen.
• IBWF Institut für Betriebsberatung, Wirtschaftförderung u. -forschung e.V.
• Cyprus Project Management Society
• T-SOFT AS