Developing and testing a business continuity plan is an ongoing process. Creating one requires a dedicated team with varying perspectives and focuses.
Management’s commitment to the plan is also crucial to ensure it remains viable. This includes regularly testing it and promoting awareness among employees. A well-communicated plan will help employees feel confident and determined during and after crises.
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1. Determine Your Risks
Having the right business continuity plan in place reduces downtime and provides a quicker route to recovery from a disruption. Ideally, your BCP takes into account the most common risks and includes automated backups of key information to ensure it is protected in case of an IT catastrophe, as well as disk mirroring strategies that keep critical data available even if one environment fails.
Your employees are one of your best resources for identifying potential risks, so make sure to include them in your planning process. Providing training and awareness helps to create a culture of preparedness and empowers employees to report problems as they arise.
You also need to consider how your business is unique in its operations and the risks it faces. This will help you determine how to prioritize your plans and allocate resources.
2. Create a Plan
A company can mitigate these risks by creating a business continuity plan (BCP). This is a set of preventive measures that can be activated in the event of a disaster or other critical event.
During the planning stage, it’s important to identify and prioritize key processes that should be protected and to determine the impact of any interruption to those processes. This includes collecting data on RTO, RPO, any single points of failure, dependencies on other processes and the potential financial losses resulting from disruptions.
It’s also essential to assemble a team to enact the BCP during a crisis and train them regularly. This team should include members of the executive committee and other key stakeholders. By involving employees in the development of continuity strategies, they’ll be more likely to buy into the importance of the plans and be ready to act during a crisis.
3. Test Your Plan
The best way to ensure that your business continuity plan works properly is to test it. Testing helps identify issues and ensures that all team members are aware of how to proceed in the event of an interruption.
While it’s essential to test your plans, you also need to reassess them on a regular basis. This will take into account any changes that might have occurred. For example, if COVID-19 caused you to temporarily shift to 100 percent work-from-home operations, it’s a good idea to revisit your plans to make sure they are up to date.
It’s also a good idea to include new employees in the testing process so that they can offer fresh perspectives on your plans and make recommendations for improvements. This will help keep your teams safe and ensure that your business can survive even the most unpredictable disruptions.
4. Share Your Plan
It’s important to involve a range of employees from the beginning stages of business continuity planning. Having multiple perspectives helps pinpoint issues that an individual may miss. For example, a business can benefit from including members of the security team in the assessment stage, so they are aware of the importance of protecting sensitive data and the risk of malware threats.
Once a plan is in place, it’s time to share it with the entire company and get everyone on board. This includes incorporating the plan into training exercises, and it’s a good idea to schedule regular, ongoing reviews that are more than just a check-the-box exercise.
This is especially important in today’s remote working world. Businesses can leverage emergency communication solutions to reach employees wherever they are and keep them informed in the event of an incident.
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5. Take Action
With the tumultuous events of recent years, including natural disasters, cyberattacks and geopolitical tensions, it’s become clear that businesses need robust business continuity plans to minimize downtime and unwanted costs. Having these plans in place can help organizations save revenue, maintain productivity and protect the reputation of their brands.
To implement an effective plan, companies must identify and prioritize their critical functions. Oftentimes, employees will argue that all processes are important; however, it’s crucial to have difficult conversations and make tough decisions during this process.
This includes implementing strategies that reduce the risk of a single point of failure by having redundant systems, disk mirroring and backups. It’s also imperative to communicate the plan with your team, as they may need to be prepared for any unexpected event that arises.
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