Business Continuity Planning

You’ve just had a call from the Fire Commander telling you that he and his team have managed to extinguish the fire at your offices.  Fortunately, it only took a few thousand gallons of water to douse the flames.  Unfortunately, the building’s now full of water; your IT and communications equipment is destroyed; your furniture is unsalvageable.  You’re bleary eyed as it’s 0230hrs on Monday morning and you should be opening for business in a few hours.  It’ll take weeks for the insurance company to settle and then you’ve got to rebuild. 

What do you do?

You reach for that Business Continuity Plan (BCP) you wrote and sigh with relief.  So what is “business continuity”?

Basically, business continuity management (BCM) is about planning for those events which could disrupt your day-to-day business.

Where do I start?

Simple, you know your business best.  You should create a “risk matrix” and start populating it with potential threats to your ability to provide a product / service.  This can and should range from loss of vital equipment for 30 minutes to complete loss of physical premises and assets for a much longer period or pandemic flu and loss of you’re most precious asset of all, the staff who make the business tick.

Start thinking about what you need to operate your business in the middle of a crisis and this part is vital – we’re talking about a CRISIS.

When you start to think about the number of staff you require to perform your functions, don’t be tempted to try and justify your current staffing levels.  BCM is not about reviewing business practice or staffing levels; it’s about planning to deliver core services in extreme adversity.  That may mean you can run your business for 1-2 days with only 2 members of staff; 1 telephone and 1 networked computer.

When it comes to day 3, you may need to increase staffing to 6 members of staff with greater IT and communication facilities before returning to normal service by day 7.  You’ll know best.

Who’s it for?

BCM is for everyone, from the smallest to the largest organisations across all sectors.  The level and ability of the organisation to cope in a crisis will depend greatly on planning and also on the resources available to the organisation such as alternative premises (perhaps even a Disaster Recovery Site or DRS).

I’ve got my plan, what’s next?

Test it, learn from and incorporate the results into your BCP.  Train all your staff, particularly those staff who have or will have a key role in business continuity.

The CMI along with the Cabinet Office reported on their study findings in March 2009.  Every statutory organisation should now have a BCP but regardless of you’re business and sector, you should be starting to plan for the worst and hope for the best.

BCM doesn’t need to cost anything more than a few hours of planning and evaluation, loss of business when the unexpected happens could cost far more.