Key Elements for a Business Continuity Plan

In its most basic terms, business continuity is about staying in business in the face of a disaster that could significantly interrupt critical business processes or systems.  It is about maintaining the viability of your business during emergency and protecting employees, assets, reputation and operations in a controlled manner.

But before creating a continuity plan, an organization must first establish what is critical to their operation and encompass all of the necessary components such as staff, systems, data and communications.  It’s also important to remember that natural disasters and catastrophic events are not the only dangers that can create a disaster for a business.  Fires, security breaches, data loss or even electrical failures should not be overlooked.  Consider every part of the business and determine which functions would need to be recovered immediately and what it would take to make that happen.  Once these fundamental requirements are documented strategies can then be formulated.

There are three main items to consider when formulating a successful business continuity plan

1. How long can the business afford for systems to be down. Are there clients waiting?  Are there deadlines to be met?
2. How much data is at risk in the event of a disaster? How often is data backed up to an offsite server?  Is there replication to backup in real time?
3. What level of service is required with immediate effect? Are there manual processes in place?  Do employees know what to do?  Do we know who to call for maintenance?

You should always plan for the worst.  Think about succession planning, that is, if your network administrator is unavailable who will restore connectivity or if the CEO is unavailable, who will provide leadership.  Identify evacuations routes and alternate locations.  Map out processes that will deal with loss of information or even contract a third party to provide off site access to backed up data.

Another key element to successfully surviving a business disaster is crisis communication and management.  While getting things back up and running, clients, staff and authorities want to know about the recovery process, the extent of the damage and how you intend to accomplish restoration.  Keeping the communication lines open ensures transparency and also assures your stakeholders that you know what you are doing.

Finally, test the plan.  Make sure it works and that the steps laid out are practical.  You don’t have to set your building on fire, but you can plan a fire drill, you can do scenario based testing and identify weak points and any key components that may be missing. 

When the unthinkable happens, the only thing that matters is preparedness.