If you own or run a business, you know how important it is to expect the unexpected. From healthcare to government, every industry can be affected by out-of-the-blue disruptions. The secret to staying one step ahead of a crisis lies in creating a business continuity plan.
What is business continuity?
The term “business continuity” refers to an organization’s ability to maintain accessible levels of service and vital functions during and after any significant disruption. The goal remains the same across various industries: to minimize damage and return to normal operations as quickly as possible after the crisis. Possible disruptions include supply chain failures, natural disasters, power outages, cyberattacks and more.
What is a business continuity plan?
A business continuity plan, often shortened to BCP, outlines the steps an organization plans to take to resume normal operations in the event of a crisis. Often outlined in an official document, a BCP offers a proactive approach to ensure stability during operational abnormalities. With a plan for business continuity, everyone involved knows exactly what to do, rather than crumbling under pressure.
The top benefits of having a business continuity plan
- Minimizes financial loss
- Protects reputation
- Maintains customer trust
- Ensures regulatory compliance
- Mitigates risk
- Boosts stakeholder confidence
- Improves future resilience
What are the key components of a robust business continuity plan?
Without considering continuity of business, organizations in healthcare, manufacturing, utilities and beyond will find themselves scrambling to regain stability after an unexpected interruption. To create a well-rounded BCP, you’ll need to cover these five components.
The 5 parts of a good business continuity plan
- Risk assessment: identifies the potential risks and analyzes the possible impact on business functions, ordering them from most to least urgent.
- Recovery strategies: defines the business resilience actions needed to restore operations after a crisis, prioritizing efforts based on the level of the failure’s impact.
- Defined responsibilities: outlines exactly who should lead recovery efforts and what tasks are assigned to each department or team member.
- Communication protocols: establishes internal and external communication protocols, detailing answers to how and when updates should be given to employees, stakeholders and clients.
- Regular testing: involves routine testing and training sessions to verify that the business resilience plan continues to be effective.
Common mistakes in business continuity plans
More companies worldwide are recognizing the importance of business continuity—but that doesn’t come without a price. As leadership rushes to put proper BCPs in place, these organizations find themselves falling into the same traps over and over. Oftentimes, it isn’t until a real incident occurs that the gaps in their business continuity arrangement become clear.
The good news? These mistakes are entirely preventable. When you begin to understand the common pitfalls and how to avoid them, building a reliable BCP is easy. When you and your business consultant are drafting your business continuity plan, avoid the most common errors.
7 errors to avoid
- Focusing solely on IT systems
- Forgetting to externally back up data
- Neglecting to test the plan on a regular basis
- Refusing to revise the plan in the future
- Relying on broad generalizations
- Limiting BCP accessibility
- Skipping risk assessment
Business continuity vs. operational resilience
Though both terms are often discussed in the same scenarios, it’s essential to understand what sets business continuity and operational resilience apart. One is not the predecessor to the other. A BCP is a crucial component of operational resilience—without it, an organization wouldn’t have the tools to get through a systematic failure.
A business continuity plan refers to the technical aspect of keeping a business running during a disaster by relying on pre-planned processes in times of stress. Operational resilience, on the other hand, refers to an organization’s overall ability to withstand and recover from disruptive events.
How are business continuity arrangements an investment in your company's growth?
Having a strong plan for continuity of business in place does more than protect existing assets within your company; it creates a more agile organization designed for long-term success. If you want your company to grow and evolve in this uncertain world, hiring a consultant to create your BCPs is key.
Focusing on business resilience helps prevent significant financial loss during downtime and service issues. In recent studies, the average cost of downtime in larger companies has been proven to reach as high as $9,000 per minute in some cases.
Investing in a BCP can also enhance your brand’s reputation. How you handle a disruption affects how your clients and stakeholders view you. If the recovery is managed well, it reinforces your organization’s image and preserves loyalty.
How to create a business continuity plan
A strong BCP takes time to create and is valuable to your organization’s operational resilience. While business continuity arrangements should be customized based on specific needs, a good starting point for any BCP usually follows the steps below.
5 steps to building your very own BCP
- Step 1 — Build a solid team: After leadership designates someone to oversee the process, assemble a core team. Ensure the team includes representatives from all relevant departments, such as production, HR, finance and quality.
- Step 2 — Manage risk assessment: As a group, identify the potential events or hazards (both natural and human-driven) that are most likely to impact your business. Once the list is finalized, analyze the likelihood and severity of each disruption.
- Step 3 — Develop a Business Impact Analysis: Create a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to identify how each disruption could affect business resilience, services and operations. This will help you get an understanding of which systems and functions within your service should be restored first.
- Step 4 — Document the procedure: Once everything is analyzed, finalize the business continuity arrangement into a clear, comprehensive and easily accessible document. This procedure should outline all the actions, roles and resources required to respond to and recover from a crisis.
- Step 5 — Put it to the test: Test your BCP by simulating disruptions, running drills and conducting tabletop exercises with the entire team to ensure it works in real-time.
Why use a consultant for business continuity?
You can’t expect to undertake the responsibility of business resilience in addition to your other day-to-day duties. That’s where consultants come in.
With years of experience, specialized knowledge and an unbiased perspective, consultants can easily identify which disruptions pose the greatest risk to your organization. After a bit of research and planning, they’ll provide you with the perfectly tailored and customized BCP.
We understand the importance of business continuity
We have a long history of assisting organizations across all industries in building business resilience. Learn if our consulting services are right for you and create your business continuity plan today.
