Governance | Global Enterprise Risk Management
Business Continuity (BCP), Crisis Management

To achieve its vision of providing social and customer value, the safety and security of employees and the continuity of business operations are top priorities of Bridgestone. By sensing, assessing, prioritizing, and managing potential risks, Bridgestone works to protect its employees while also positively driving business success. To advance this knowledge organization-wide, Bridgestone conducts regular training and regularly reviews business continuity plans (BCPs) and controls.

Enhancing business continuity planning and crisis management systems is an important aspect of enterprise risk management (ERM), which is an increasing focus area as the world grapples with natural disasters, climate change, and the effects of geopolitical conflicts. Bridgestone is actively engaged in addressing these challenges.

Bridgestone is continuously working toward its goals of fulfilling its mission of Global Enterprise Risk Management and prevent and mitigate risks. The company has established measurable KPIs for each of these goals related to Business Continuity and Crisis Management, which include:

1. Continuing to develop and strengthen global and regional programs, including enhancing business continuity planning and crisis management, and putting technology in place to support these programs.
2. Lowering the recovery time objective (RTO) for the maximum acceptable downtime for business-critical functions.
3. Minimizing recovery point objectives (RPO) to limit the maximum amount of data loss.
4. Increasing the completion rate of business impact analyses (BIAs) and site response plans to ensure plans are reviewed and updated.
5. Improving response time to reduce the time taken to respond to a crisis.
6. Decreasing crisis resolution time to shorten the time from the onset of a crisis until normal operations resume.

A prompt initial response is essential for business continuity. In preparing for this response, Bridgestone gives top priority to its employees’ health, safety, and security; minimizing business losses; and anticipating business-impacting events that may occur in the supply chain. To achieve a quick recovery from crisis, Bridgestone has established a tiered response system based on the specific crisis situation and its severity. Additionally, it has established a system for identifying and implementing countermeasures and protocols. This system enables a prompt initial response to ensure business continuity/early recovery and drives initiatives for continuous improvement, making use of past experiences and lessons learned.

Bridgestone continues to improve its risk-control processes that strengthen the management team’s ability to make informed, timely, and far-reaching decisions. It is also implementing all-hazards business continuity planning in each region. All-hazards business continuity planning prepares the organization for all types of threats and vulnerabilities to prevent supply chain disruption, rather than planning for specific scenarios.

Bridgestone has developed a common, aligned framework and standards for enterprise risk management, business continuity, and crisis management. These standards address the governance and oversight of programs, the program framework, and technology, as well as Bridgestone’s ability to identify, assess, mitigate, and respond to significant enterprise-wide risks.

It also enhanced its global approach to emergencies including emergency action reports (EARs), the Group-wide internal quick-reporting system for significant incidents.

Going forward, Bridgestone will continue to improve its operational framework to strengthen business continuity and crisis management processes.

Bridgestone believes that proactively protecting corporate assets forms the basis of good corporate management, especially in the case of a natural disaster. Initiatives in this area also contribute to mitigating risks to employees and communities, thereby fulfilling social responsibility requirements. Each region of Bridgestone formulates a BCP in case of a natural disaster or extreme weather event and regularly conducts initial response training. The following are examples of natural disasters targeted by each region, but not limited to these.

• Japan: Earthquakes (including tsunamis), floods, and typhoons
• Americas: Hurricanes and severe winter weather
• Europe: Extreme heat
• Asia: Earthquakes and floods