How to write a business continuity plan
Creating your Business Continuity PlanJust for the unexpected moments in business, after all “Things don’t always go according to plan”.
Creating your business continuity plan
Key to the Business is Continuity during a Crisis.
Businesses can be thrown into crisis due to any number of reasons, many of these events are completely outwith the control of the business.
A key supplier goes out of business, a key member of staff leaves or is unwell, loss of IT systems for any reason or natural disaster.
Planning for unforeseen events can be a guessing game, creating a good plan may take a number of iterations.
But with some insurers now insisting on a Business Continuity plan, the time to start planning was a month or a year ago.
Starting the process
The initial analysis, gathering the initial information on the Business.
A Business Continuity Plan is commonly used when any business experiences an impact, difficulty or crisis, this can be due to any number of reasons. The plan should endeavor to cover them all, which is a pretty big ask. For the purpose of creating a Business Continuity Plan, no area of the business should be considered outside the remit of this analysis.
Looking inward
The objective look at the business, the hardest part of the exercise at hand.
How do you determine where there could be a problem, especially one that impacts the business. For the most appropriate answers look to the people inside the business, the people who are most aware of the risk are already in house. Make use of your resource and capitalise on in house knowledge, it will give an insight into where the risk to the business lies.
Looking outward
The look at the things that you don’t have any control over.
This is where the uncertainty begins to creep in, it is also why the Business Continuity Plan has to be flexible and adaptable. There are many potential external factors that may impact a business, the current Covid-19 pandemic comes to mind here and mitigation of some may not be practical without significant investment. However being adaptable and flexible in these circumstances can reduce the impact to manageable levels.
Formulating a plan
After the analysis a plan, well a draft plan at least.
Once the initial analysis is complete, you can start the planning. For some of the areas of the plan, most businesses will already have processes in place that can be copied in.
Some areas of the business will require processes to be documented and proceedures written, a plan may have to deal with people not being available.
Other areas of the business will need only the minimum of planning, but all parts of the business will have to go through the analysis process.
It is time to capitalise on the knowledge of your in house resources, these people know the business from a different level – a founder may not be as objective as his staff.
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