Business continuity planning (BCP) is the process involved in creating a system of prevention and recovery from potential threats to a company. The plan ensures that personnel and assets are protected, and are able to function quickly in the event of a disaster. The BCP is generally conceived in advance and involves input from key stakeholders and personnel. A BCP (Business Continuity Plan) is a plan to help ensure that business processes can continue during a time of emergency or disaster. Such emergencies or disasters might include a fire or any other case where business is not able to occur under normal conditions. Businesses need to look at all such potential threats and devise BCPs to ensure continued operations should the threat become a reality. Therefore, the main objectives of a business continuity plan are to identify critical operations and risks, provide a plan to maintain or restore critical operations during a crisis, and create a plan to communicate with key people during the crisis. A business continuity plan involves the following:
- Analysis of organizational threats
- A list of the primary tasks required to keep the organization operations flowing
- Explanation of where personnel should go if there is a disastrous event
- Easily located management contact information
- Information on data backups and organization site backup
- Collaboration among all facets of the organization
- Buy-in from everyone in the organization
There are several steps many companies must follow to develop a solid BCP. They include:
- The Business Impact Analysis: Here, the business will identify functions and related resources that are time-sensitive. More on this below.
- Recovery: In this portion, the business must identify and implement steps to recover critical business functions.
- Organization: A continuity team must be created. This team will devise a plan to manage the disruption.
- Training: The continuity team must be trained and tested. Members of the team should also complete exercises that go over the plan and strategies.
Companies may also find it useful to come up with a checklist that includes key details such as emergency contact information, a list of resources the continuity team may need, where backup data and other required information is housed or stored, and other important personnel.
Along with testing the continuity team, the company should also test the BCP itself. It should be tested several times to ensure it can be applied to many different risk scenarios. This will help identify any weaknesses in the plan which can then be identified and corrected.
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