The Importance of Business Continuity Planning

Business continuity planning cannot be an additional cost, and should instead be seen as a business necessity of all sectors and enterprises. Corporate continuity strategies also offer valuable security against natural disasters that could interrupt operations, cost the business and negatively impact its reputation.

Under the hood, building a BCP involves conducting a comprehensive risk analysis and business impact analysis (BIA). Here are some important parts of this process.

Recovering from a disaster

When it comes to maintaining business operations after an unexpected disaster strikes, having an effective and tested business continuity plan (BCP) is crucial. A BCP covers disaster scenarios that could impact operations, customers, employees and partners as well as how those risks could be reduced or avoided altogether. This process begins by determining what risks exist before working out how best to mitigate them.

Undertaking this task also entails identifying all critical processes and functions, and setting recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives accordingly; including timelines to return these processes back into service. Furthermore, employees need to understand their role when executing such plans when necessary.

An effective BCP should include testing procedures and a process to keep it current at all times, which will not only help boost employee morale but also ensure their workplace is prepared in case the unthinkable occurs.

Restoring business operations

An effective business continuity plan provides clear guidelines on how to maintain operations during a crisis, including setting response levels, identifying essential and non-essential services and creating contact info. Furthermore, the plan provides details of how employees will be informed as well as procedures for reaching key stakeholders and the location of backup sites.

Businesses should conduct tests of their plans twice or four times every year to ensure that they will function when needed. During these exercises, companies simulate various disruption scenarios to measure how effectively their plans mitigate the impact of disaster.

These tests can uncover vulnerabilities in a company’s plan and correct it in the future. Planned responses to technological and environmental change should be continuously tested to ensure current content and utility. Additionally, having the business continuity plan visible and accessible to employees will eliminate confusion while helping to reduce recovery time.

Regaining a competitive edge

Business continuity planning involves multiple essential steps, including performing a risk analysis and setting business priorities. While disaster recovery is the primary component of a BCP, other issues covered include workforce continuity, safety, environmental security and reputation management.

An effective business continuity plan ensures employees feel secure during crises and can concentrate on work uninterrupted, as well as reconnecting with customers and gaining competitive advantages – this means customers will more readily trust your company if it is prepared to respond in times of disaster.

Disruptions to business operations can be extremely costly. From DDoS attacks that knock your site offline to warehouse fires that prevent products from shipping out, not having a plan in place can result in financial losses, consumer and employee distrust and lasting harm to your brand image. To safeguard against such events, regularly test and update your business continuity plans to avoid these potential pitfalls.

Creating a culture of resilience

Create a culture of resilience is central to business continuity planning. Resilient companies embrace open communication and teamwork even during times of crisis; have clear processes in place for addressing employee concerns; encourage employees to step outside their comfort zones and try new things; support them when they fail; and offer advice when issues arise.

At the core of any successful business continuity plan lies its assessment. To do this, critical business processes should be assessed both for their vulnerability and resilience via conducting a business impact analysis which also covers recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) parameters for each process.

Once this information has been gathered, a business continuity team will create a plan to deal with disaster. All stakeholders, including senior management should participate in this process. A good practice would be for the team to test and practice its plan multiple times each year so as to allow fresh eyes to find gaps or loopholes which might otherwise go undetected.