Creating a team to action the business continuity plan will deliver a number of benefits, these are not easy to see at the beginning of the process. But over time the advantages of having the team will become clear, you will appreciate the benefits when there is a requirement to action the plan or part of it.
If you are a one man business, the team is you and provided that you can be resilient and responsive the plan can be in your head – it is better if it is written down and someone else can action it. As if for any reason you are unavailable, the plan will unravel and it is possible that the impact to your business is catastrophic – unless there is a written plan that someone else can use. To be fair, if the written plan says “it’s all in the diary” – that is probably good enough. If the diary is kept up to date and has everything in it!
Larger businesses can be a bit more proactive in the planning aspects, what to do can be communicated to others and the whole situation is so much easier to manage. Losing a key person can hurt, but other people – even those from different disciplines can action the plan if required. The plan should encompass what would have to be done, when a given set of circumstances crops up.
When you create a team there’s a few considerations, but the main one is this team has to maintain your business function with the minimum of disruption. Keeping Customers, Suppliers and your Staff in the loop, managing the issues and bringing the business back to normal function are the principal objectives of the plan.
Your team should initially comprise people from all the business disciplines, as the focus for implementation shifts to a specific area then people can usually be released back to their normal work quite quickly. Leaving only the required resource working on the issue, this obviously makes the best use of company resource. Remember, there is no guarantee that this team is available – so flexibility is required.
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