What is a Business Continuity Plan?

 Would your business be able to deliver mission-critical services if: 

• Your building burned to the ground and all basic materials were destroyed?
• Hackers infiltrate your network and you couldn’t access client information?
• The flu hits staff and management, leaving multiple people out for an indefinite period?
• An assailant causes a lockdown of your building and you can’t access your offices?
• Thieves break in and steal all your computers?

A business continuity plan is an organized set of steps, procedures, protocols, and information you put into place so that you can respond to these types of scenarios and keep your business running. Likewise, it is an ongoing process to verify that the answers to questions remain: yes.

A key to the business continuity plan is to have it in place before the interruption occurs, otherwise the interruption will become your company trying to figure out how to deal with the interruption.

Business continuity planning goes beyond crisis management and disaster recovery, though these are components of organizational survival and critical to have in place.  Business continuity planning focuses on sustaining the ability to deliver services in the event of a serious interruption to normal business operations. It is multi-faceted and covers all areas of the organization.

A properly laid-out business continuity plan will allow your organization to deliver services and maintain profitable activity regardless of unexpected contingencies.  

A business continuity plan also allows your organization to:

• Avoid financial loss, regulatory fines, loss of market share
• Maintain regulatory compliance with government agencies
• Provide security to employees
• Reduce exposure to civil or criminal liability
• Meet insurance requirements and lower premiums
• Enhance company image for clients and vendors by instilling confidence that your services will always be available

The statistics are grim for companies that face serious business interruptions. Services cannot be delivered and money is lost in the short run, while loss of client confidence and hits to company reputation wreak havoc on the long-term. Many unprepared businesses never really recover.

The Nonprofit Risk Management Center offers a free course on the basics of business continuity planning that is also helpful for business owners. 

Connecting Point offers a free evaluation, called the survivability index, which provides details on how prepared your business is and will give a framework for understanding the scope of what needs to be put in place. 

By investigating these resources you will discover a few small steps you can put into place right away, and also learn about software packages and support offerings designed to help your business not only put a complete business continuity plan in place, but verify and maintain it so the in the event the plan has to be put into action, it will work.  

Written By:  Scott Yoder