Till innehåll på sidan

Interview with Wolfgang Mahr, Switzerland

Wolfgang Mahr is very much involved in Business Contiuity Management and Active in the TC 292 work on ISO 22301. He also served as projectleader of ISO/TS 17019-6 which was a joint project with CASCO on auditing the ISO 22301.

Isotc292online.org: You are a member of the Swiss mirror committee to TC 292. Can you briefly introduce your NSB and mirror committee, please?  Wolfgang Mahr

HoD: Well, Switzerland is a small country and so is our mirror committee. We are just a handful of people and cannot even represent all the working groups (WGs) of TC292. But the key players are well motivated and we even are active in CEN as well.

Isotc292online.org: Who are the key stakeholders of Security and resilience in Switzerland?

HoD: It’ s not up to me to determine who in our team is a key player or not – all of us have special interests and contribute at various levels.

Isotc292online.org: ISO/TC 292 covers a broad spectrum of standards. In what areas are Switzerland’s  main interests in the committee?

HoD: I myself became a member of SNV (Swiss Association of Standardization) ten years ago, joining ISO/TC 223 and helping to develop the world’s first standard on business continuity: ISO 22301:2012. For many years, I had been to only delegate to the plenary and working group meetings. Later, after the merger of ISO/TC 223 with other ISO Technical committees, I was joined by delegates working on Authenticity, integrity and trust for products and documents as a world leader in security inks is located near Lausanne at the Lake of Geneva.

Isotc292online.org: How do you work currently in these areas (e.g.: are there any laws, regulations, national standards or other rules?) and how can ISO standards help?

HoD: Let’s come back to the business continuity management systems standard ISO 22301:2012. As explained earlier, until 2012 there was no global BCM standard and Switzerland had no local standard. We had to "borrow” standards from other countries and/or organizations. After the publication of ISO 22301:2012, we could rely, for the first time, on global best practices

Isotc292online.org: So far have you adopted any standards developed by ISO/TC 292 as a national standard in Switzerland?

HoD:  I personally supported the adoption of ISO 22301:2012 as a European standard (EN) via CEN. Based on the fact that an EN standards are considered to be national standards, we now can look at ISO 22301:2012 as a Swiss standard.

Isotc292online.org: ISO/TC 292 is now working on the revision of ISO 22031:2012.  What is your interest in this project and how would you like to see it develop?  

HoD: The revision is well under way and WG2 tasked with this project is eager to present a first draft document for the next ISO/TC 292 Plenary Meeting in Stavanger, Norway this October. While our WG2 did not get any relevant signals on what need to be modified in the revised version, some six hundred comments were received from the community. They have been treated in a WG2 meeting in London in November 2016, during several parallel WG2 meetings at the Plenary Meeting in March 2018 in Sydney, plus several global WebEx meetings in May/June 2018: and we still haven’t been able to work through all the comments. But I’m sure we will be able to present a solid proposal for the Stavanger meeting, thanks to the great effort and skills of our secretary Mike Henigan and the project leader Saul Midler.

Isotc292online.org: How does your mirror committee involve itself in standard development at present and how do you see this developing in the future?

HoD: As we don’t even have one expert per WG, current and future effort will be based on the participating personalities.

Isotc292online.org: What advice can you give to interested parties in Switzerland who want to offer their input to the work of ISO/TC 292 and your mirror committee and who should they address? 

HoD: By all means, get in touch with our secretary of our mirror committee, Ms. Helena Meister at SNV (helena.meister@snv.ch) or myself at wolfgang.mahr@continuuuity.ch.

Isotc292online.org: Possible projects?

HoD: As mentioned above, we need experts in all working groups. I only can recommend to have a look at http://www.isotc292online.org/organization/, an excellent communication platform for our TC 292, to learn more about it. I take the liberty to thank Mr. Stefan Tangen for his excellent work to keep this site up, running and current.