It is uncommon for us to receive notification before a calamity occurs. However, even when planning, several things might still go wrong because each occurrence is different and develops in unforeseen ways.

A business continuity strategy can be useful in this situation. Put a current, tried-and-true plan in the hands of every employee who is in charge of carrying out any aspect of it to give your firm the best chance of success during a disaster. Lack of a strategy doesn’t just imply that your company will take longer than it should recover from an event or disaster. You might permanently close your business.

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan is a  document or a file that includes the vital information a company needs to keep running in the case of an unanticipated occurrence.

The BCP outlines the fundamental operations of the company, points out the systems and processes that must be maintained, and provides instructions on how to do so. It ought to account for any potential turbulence in business.

A BCP addresses risks such as computer hacking, pandemics, natural catastrophes, and human error. A business continuity plan is essential for an organisation to have to maintain its health and reputation given the variety of potential hazards. A solid BCP reduces the likelihood of expensive IT or power outages.

The strategy is frequently made by IT administrators. The executive staff, on the other hand, takes part in the process and contributes oversight and expertise to the business. They also guarantee that the BCP is consistently updated.

Why is BCP Important?

An organisation can comprehend possible dangers, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses to its organisation in times of crisis by engaging in proactive business processes like business continuity planning. Business interruptions can be rapidly and effectively handled by company management thanks to the establishment of a business continuity plan.

A BCP lets a business continue serving consumers amid a crisis and reduces the chance that clients will turn to other businesses. These plans minimise downtime for the firm while outlining what should be done before, during, and after an emergency to keep it financially viable.

Components of a Business Continuity Plan

The following components should be included in a BCP:

• essential data at the start of the strategy, including crucial contact details;
• a process for managing revisions that tell how to manage changes;
• the objective and scope;
• a description of how to implement the strategy, including timing instructions;
• information on policies;
• the steps to take in an emergency and their management;
• detailed instructions;
• flowcharts and checklists;
• an explanation of the plan’s terminology; and
• timetable for testing, evaluating, and revising the plan

Business Continuity Plan: The Advantages

1. Your company will be better equipped to deal with the unexpected.

Employers cannot count on their employees to react responsibly in a crisis. Leaving each person to act by his or her preferences will, at best, just increase the chaos and, at worst, result in human casualties. A BCP will help in detailing procedures well in advance of an emergency. In this approach, employees can learn how to protect themselves and act rationally without becoming anxious.

2. Your company will have security measures in place.

It’s a common misconception that businesses that have insurance do not need a business continuity plan. Indeed, a business cannot always rely solely on insurance. Insurance may not always pay for incident-related collateral damage, such as lost customers, a decline in market share, and operational challenges. A BCP only strengthens security and safety within your firm. 

3. Your company will invest in its resilience and self-confidence.

Your organisation will benefit from the time you invest in creating and maintaining a business continuity plan. Whether you are open or not following an event, it is crucial to keep in mind that your fixed costs will persist. You’ll have a better chance of fully recovering from an unexpected occurrence if your firm can resume operations as soon as possible.

4. After the disaster, your company will have a strategy in place to keep offering respectable service.

Threats, hiccups, and disasters can result in a decrease in sales and an increase in expenses, which can have an impact on profitability. Don’t let an unplanned incident hinder your company, especially if it will affect how much product or service is produced. A business continuity plan can assist your company in maintaining operations, retaining clients, and generating income.

5. Your company will better protect its name, perception, and source of income.

The businesses that take the time to plan their emergency response are the ones that can recover and carry on with business as normal. Your company won’t need to make rash judgments under pressure if it has a predetermined business continuity plan and adequate insurance coverage.

The Objectives: 

Objective 1: Determine the Disaster Recovery Personnel

One of the most crucial objectives of your business continuity planning is to identify the people who will make up your disaster recovery team. You should consider the following questions:

• Who makes up that recovery from disaster teams?
• What are their responsibilities?
• How can you contact them in an emergency?
• If the designated main is unavailable, who will serve as the alternates?

The coordinator of crisis management plays a crucial function in your disaster recovery system. The disaster recovery coordinator may also be used to refer to this person. The individual has been given discretionary power and is in charge of establishing recovery plan guidelines and managing the restoration of corporate activities.

Objective 2: Review the risks and effects

Using a risk assessment to identify the numerous internal and external hazards to your operations is another essential goal of developing a BCP. The outcomes of the risk assessment will be combined into a business impact study, which will outline the various sorts of catastrophes that could affect your organisation and quantify the effects of each scenario, including the cost of operational losses, and the extent of the damage, and so forth.

Objective 3: List the current preventive measures

What steps are being taken to stop ransomware incidents like the one I just read about in the press, asks a corporate stakeholder. This is yet another justification for your BCP. The technologies, instruments, and procedures that are already in use to avert or lessen the consequences of a disaster will be described. The review of preventive measures includes technologies for on-site data backup and cloud services backup.

The preventive measures analysis offers a way to reach consensus among team members on what expenditures the company needs to make in further preventative measures by showing all participants of the business continuity organisation what assets are already in place. The procedure, which is frequently referred to as a gap analysis, will help the team reach a consensus so that the BCP results can be used as a tool to ask executive decision-makers for funding to increase business resilience.

Objective 4: Describe the procedures in detail

Your plan will outline the precise steps that must be taken to aid in recovery. When a calamity happens, likely, staff members won’t recall exactly what to do. Your disaster teams should be aware of the basics, but they can refer to the document if necessary to follow the steps exactly as they are described.

It’s crucial to make a distinction at this point between a business continuity plan and a catastrophe recovery strategy. A disaster recovery plan will be in a detailed business continuity plan, as we stated in our earlier piece on the subject. The disaster recovery plan is a stand-alone document as well as a component of your business continuity strategy.

The disaster recovery plan contains specific instructions on how to activate emergency response teams, define plan triggering events, handle emergency alerts and escalation, and locate team assembly places, among other things.

Objective 5: Find Critical Data and Assets’ Locations

Finding the locations of essential data and other assets is one of the most crucial goals of an IT business continuity plan. As a result, recovery teams can start the recovery process even if crucial IT professionals are not accessible. Consider a situation where there was no IT workforce, for instance. Other employees or stakeholders must be able to at least follow a footprint. Any uncertainty will seriously slow down the healing process.

Companies can automate asset tracking with an IT asset management system, which also helps to cut down on mistakes brought on by outdated data, duplicates, incorrect serial numbers, and tag overlaps. Systems for asset management contribute to preventive measures for cyber security. A device that links to the network without antivirus programs or the most recent patch to address a known security concern could go unnoticed in the absence of a comprehensive asset management list. Systems for managing IT assets have made it easier to track the widely dispersed devices that the COVID-19 epidemic caused.

Objective 6: Identify Resources and Backup Locations

Teams in charge of recovery must be aware of the best locations, methods, and equipment for moving activities. Your BCP will include the accessibility of any spare office space or the steps to quickly find a new space. It will also mention the availability of physical backup resources like workstations and equipment.

Disaster recovery backup sites come in a variety of forms, however, they are often categorised in one of four ways: the mobile site, the warm site, the cold site, and the hot site.

Making a Business Continuity Plan: Steps

It takes a lot of work to develop an effective BCP, but doing so is essential to running a robust company.

Planning for continuity must be taken seriously by you, your designated business continuity team, and your employees. These five steps will assist you in getting started.

Step 1: Bring together a Business Continuity Management Team

Your team’s composition will depend on your company’s size and your continuity goals.

A solid BCP should outline what your personnel must do in the scenario of a disaster, the necessary communication channels, and the deadline for key IT service availability.

• Make a contact list with the names, positions held, and business and personal contact information for the important individuals involved in your company’s BCP.
• To ensure that everyone is aware of their duties and responsibilities during an outage occurrence, give a thorough review of each person’s duties.
• Make sure you have a procedure in place for updating your BCP and informing the team of these revisions.

This team will teach new team members and create project standards. Additionally, they will pinpoint precise procedures to enhance project flow.

Step 2: Ensure Your Employees’ Safety and Well-Being

• When making plans, you must be ready to put your employees’ safety first in the event of an emergency. They will seek advice from you, their neighbourhood, and the government. Proactively and openly respond to their concerns. Many businesses currently have to decide whether to start or expand flexible work policies like remote work arrangements.
• Depending on your business, you may wish to rearrange teams, reallocate resources, and set up employee welfare initiatives and policies that promote a secure work environment.
• To communicate with all of your staff at once, ensure that you have the appropriate channels in place. If the wifi is not working, sending an email might not be enough. To make sure all company procedures are seamless and everyone is safe, think about using Business Continuity Planning software with an incorporated emergency messaging solution. Early and frequent communication is key with your teams. As you manage the current crisis, you want to involve your employees.

Step 3: Recognize the Threats to Your Business

You must perform a business impact analysis(BIA) after assembling your business continuity management staff.

You can find specific hazards to reputation, supply chains, operations and workers with the aid of this kind of study. When assessing hazards, it might act as a starting point.

Make a list of potential hazards and dangers to your company with your staff. Then go over how the above-said dangers might impact corporate operations.

Don’t downplay how crucial this stage is or how long it might take. A thorough questionnaire is normally used in a proper BIA to collect the range of data you’ll need. A BCP or BIA can be created with the use of BCP production tools like Agility Planner, which also gives users access to previous data and fully prepared templates.

Step 4: Put Recovery Strategies in Place

Without a BCP in place, it might be difficult to recover after a disaster when financial losses start to rise. As you and your team consider your possibilities, take into account the following queries:

• Do you have a plan in place to put your manufacturing, service, sales, and HR staff back to work following a disaster so that your company can continue to run?
• If your facility or equipment is damaged, how will you resume meeting customer demand?
• Will your workers work remotely from home or another place if your facilities are affected?

Concerns like these and many others will be addressed in your business continuity plan.

Step 5: Test, Retest, and Improve

A business continuity plan is never finished, no matter how much time you put into developing it, just as the risks and specifications of your industry are never fixed in stone.

You may validate your business continuity plan by testing it as you handle hazards. While 88% of businesses test their strategy to find gaps, just 63% do so to confirm their plans.

This assessment does not produce a “pass or fail” outcome, but rather an ongoing improvement by discovering results through a live exercise.