What is business continuity?Why business continuity planning matters

The business continuity plan describes the policies and instructions that an organization must follow in the event of a disaster, be it a fire, flood or cyberattack. Here's how to create one that will give your business the best opportunity to get out of such an event.

It includes a business continuity plan. For your organization to be successful in a natural disaster, you must provide a modern and proven plan to the staff responsible for implementing any part of that plan. Lack of planning does not mean that your company will take too long to recover from an event or event. It may be out of business forever.

What is business continuity?

Business continuity (BC) refers to the maintenance of business operations or rapid advancement in the event of a major disruption caused by fire, flood, or malicious criminal attacks. The business continuity plan explains the procedures and instructions that the organization should follow in the event of a disaster; including business processes, assets, human resources, business partners and more.

Many people consider a disaster recovery plan (DR) to be a business continuity plan, but a disaster recovery plan, primarily focused on restoring IT infrastructure and operations after a crisis. This is really just a part of a comprehensive business maintenance plan, as the BC plan sees the maintenance of all organizations.

Why business continuity planning matters

Whether you run a small business or a large company, you want to stay competitive. It's important to retain existing customers and expand your customer base - and not be able to test better than right after a bad event.

Because IT recovery is critical for most businesses, there are many disaster recovery solutions available. You can rely on information technology to implement solutions. What about the highlights of your business? The future of your business depends on your employees and processes. The ability to handle all cases effectively can positively impact a company's reputation and market value and increase customer confidence.

Organizations need to understand business processes and the implications of their loss over time. Losses can be financial, legal, reputational and regulatory. The risk of a regulator withdrawing or obtaining a "license" from an organization that may be affected by applicable conditions (retroactively or in the future) may affect market value and consumer confidence. Develop your recovery strategy with the downtime allowed for these processes.

Anatomy of a business continuity plan

If your organization does not have a business continuity plan, start by evaluating your business processes, identifying areas that are vulnerable and potentially damaging if those processes fail in a day, a few days, or a week. This is essentially a BIA.

Next, develop a plan. This involves six general steps:

1. Scope of the plan.

2. key business areas.

3. critical functions.

4. dependencies between various business areas and functions.

5. Determine acceptable downtime for each critical function.

6. Create a plan to maintain operations.

The importance of testing your business continuity plan

O'Donnell said testing the plan is the only way to make sure it works. "Obviously, an actual event is a real test and the best way to see if something works. However, a tried and tested test approach is more useful and offers the possibility to identify and correct shortcomings. "

You need to carefully test the plan to see if it is complete and its purpose is being fulfilled. In fact, O'Donnell suggests you destroy it. "Do not go for a simple scenario; always convincing but inspiring. This is the only way to improve it. Also make sure the goals are measurable and elongated.

Many organizations try a business continuity plan two to four times a year. The schedule depends on the type of organization, core revenue, and number of business processes and IT changes since the last test cycle.

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