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An effective business continuity plan can help minimize financial losses while keeping customers satisfied, protecting its brand name and maintaining customers loyalty.
Develop and test your business continuity plan regularly, with fresh eyes reviewing and testing it periodically to identify any areas for modification or improvement.
1. Establish a Continuity Team
An effective multidisciplinary business continuity team makes managing crises simpler. Ideally, its membership should span departments such as IT, HR, finance and communications.
Assemble a team that places priority on leadership and assigns key responsibilities for addressing critical services while limiting downtime. If possible, include an alternate person for every role just in case one member becomes unavailable.
Engaging new team members in BCP testing allows for fresh perspectives to identify issues which experienced personnel might overlook, while showing staff that your organization takes its BCP seriously.
Staying current with plan revisions is of utmost importance for business continuity planning, and creating a central repository of continuity documentation to enable quick response during crises and facilitate communication among staff during times of emergency. This could take the form of something as simple as sharing files on a shared drive or more sophisticated options such as cloud-based document management systems – having this access can save valuable time during an incident and enable faster recovery and restoration for your company.
2. Secure Your Critical Assets
Guarantee the recovery of important business data by regularly backing up files to secure locations and testing disaster recovery processes. Determine which teammates, partners, tools and processes will be necessary for successfully implementing your BCP.
Create a project plan with clear milestones to ensure the timely development and deployment of a BCP. Be sure to set realistic timeframes for each stage, and schedule meetings with key stakeholders for their input.
Consider hiring outside consultants or experts to help create your BCP. They can assess risks and develop recovery strategies tailored specifically for your business.
Establishing and updating a business continuity plan demonstrates to stakeholders that you are an unflappable partner during an emergency, which helps draw new investors, maintain relationships with suppliers and clients and reinforce your brand reputation. Furthermore, having one also shows your organization is ready to respond swiftly should disaster strike, which will boost staff morale and build confidence among leadership team.
3. Train Your Staff
Establishing a BCP requires considerable work and commitment from your team. Determine who will be accountable for each aspect of the plan, then include that information in the document. Use clear and straightforward language so your team can easily navigate through it during a crisis or emergency.
Utilize the Essential Services Ranking Template included with the Business Continuity Plan template to identify and rank essential services by department or business unit. This step will create a prioritized list that you can share with your team as well as stakeholders, such as customers.
Distribution your BCP is key. Plan training sessions so your staff can review it together and ask any pertinent questions. Also seek feedback, and periodically revisit it to identify any gaps or weaknesses in recovery strategies – particularly important in highly regulated industries where any inadequacies could lead to regulatory scrutiny or censure.
4. Test Your Plan
Once your draft plan is in place, put it through its paces by simulating an emergency situation. This allows employees to share feedback while seeing how they would react in such a crisis situation.
Test Your BCP Agains Other Plans And A Comprehensive Business Impact Analysis This will enable you to understand which processes need to be protected the most and what level of disruption your business can tolerate.
Consider also assessing the significance of other non-customer facing functions within your operations, such as internal teams like management, facilities management, public relations and legal entities; third-party suppliers/service providers as well as third party service providers/suppliers.
Reviewing your plan at least twice annually is highly recommended to keep up-to-date and ensure that any priorities or resources change as quickly as possible, avoiding outdated planning documents and any gaps or need for improvement in strategy.
