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7th plenary meeting successfully held in Bangkok

On the 8th to 13th of September ISO/TC 292 held its 7th plenary meeting together with all its Working Groups. The meeting was hosted by TISI and once again became the biggest meeting in the history of the committee with a participation of over 150 delegates representing almost 30 Countries and several liaison organizations. We took the opportunity to talk to Mr Ekanit Romyanon, the head of Thailands delegation, about the meeting and their involvement in the committtee.

Can you briefly introduce TISI, your national standardization organization please?Ekanit Romyanon, HoD Thailand

Yes, thanks a lot. TISI is the national standards body for Thailand and a member of ISO. We try to adopt ISO standards as far as possible, and sometimes we adapt them to suit our circumstances. Now we have around three thousand ISO standards implemented as national standards and another three thousand national, local standards published.

What is the impact of security and resilience and in particular ISO 22301 for business continuity in your country?

I believe it has a lot of impact. We have had a lot of crisis in our history, such as financial crisis and natural disasters. When ISO developed the business continuity standard, we adopted it as a national standard and our business started to implement these practices. I believe it has improved the stability of organizations and the country. However, certification is another story. Many companies apply the principles of the standard, but certification also involves costs, so the numbers are not as high as for ISO 9001. We are grateful to ISO/TC 292 to be developing this standard for us.

Who are the key stakeholders of business continuity and resilience in Thailand?

The main two categories are government and the private sector. We try to convince the private companies to use the standards to be able to manage future chocks and challenges. The uptake of standards in the private sector continue to grow on a steady curve.

What is the objective of TISI for hosting TC 262 in Bangkok and what effect do you think the meeting will have for BC, security and resilience in Thailand?

I am a standards developer and I believe in the principles of sharing, of being professional and of decisions being based on consensus. But since we have limited resources to send experts to meetings, when Thailand host these types of meetings, we can teach our people and learn from experiences of the meeting. We also like to share and show our hospitality and our Thai smile. We want more people to experience and learn about Thailand.

What message do you want to send to the global security and resilience community and the delegates and experts attending the Bangkok meeting?

First thing is to be professional, as a delegate said during the ISO/TC 292 Heads of delegation meeting. We must act as professionals in the meetings and respect each other, both in verbal communication and in written comments. We cannot simply say that someone else’s idea is wrong or stupid but respect the difference in opinions. The meeting is a very good forum to exchange ideas and culture, if we are open and listen to others and share our thoughts.

After you finish your work, life also has many other dimensions, so please also spend some time in Thailand and explore other activities to learn from.

Interview made by Bengt Rydstedt