Disasters always come without warning, meaning lack of preparedness can have devastating results to businesses. The only way that a business can ensure preparedness for disasters is through a business continuity management programme. Barclay Simpsons describes Business Continuity Management (BCM) as a holistic management process that helps an organisation identify potential threats and the possible impact that those treats might cause if realised. A Business Continuity plan provides a framework for building organisational resilience by coming up with an effective response that safeguards the company’s brand, reputation and the interests of all the stakeholders.
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The primary purpose of BCM is to provide an organisation with the ability to effectively survive both internal and external threats such as data breaches and natural disasters. A company with a robust business continuity programme lowers the impact of disruptive incidence through a proactive approach and having a predetermined recovery plan.
Coming-Up with a Proper BCM Programme
Both small businesses and big corporations need BCM to maintain a competitive advantage and customer confidence. There is no blueprint for a proper BCM programme. An organisation can use the following tips to ensure that they have a proper BCM in place.
Make sure you Have a Business Continuity Plan
Businesses should take time to plan their business continuity strategies. It will help them identify gaps, risks and critical processes. Understanding these factors will assist in coming up with an effective response and recovery plans that are tailor-made for the organisation.
Let Everyone Know Their Role
Staff can be better prepared for major incidents if they are aware of what to do, how to do it, and the right time to do it. Proper coordination during disasters will minimise the negative impacts on time. It will increase the likelihood of your organisation recovering with minimal losses.
Have the Recovery Staff Fully Accountable
You should ensure that those responsible for business continuity performance are senior staff with the required knowledge and experience in critical processes and systems.
Such individuals are an essential resource during a major incident as they are responsible for the other staff’s actions. These staff should get the appropriate business recovery and continuity training, and their recovery accountabilities should be part of their personal scorecard.
Identify the Risks
Identify the threats and risks that are most likely to impact your business. Evaluate every risk and threat individually and consider its possible preventative and control measures since every threat will have a personal impact on your business. Some of the disasters may not have reasonable control and preventative measures, but you can come up with proposals to reduce the impact of the risks. Also, ensure that you have documented all the risks in a risk register to allow easier risk management and control.
Plan Recovery Strategies for the Four Key Disruptions
It is not possible to have a recovery strategy for every risk. But you can come up with plans on how to recover from the disruptions caused by the four key disruptions. The four disruptions are; Lack of access to your building (e.g. due to damage or safety reasons), Staff absence (e.g. due to strikes or extreme weather conditions), Denial of technology, Supply chain disruptions (loss of a key supplier).
Test Your Business Continuity Management Plans
Testing your business continuity plans is the only way to confirm if they work. There is always a high possibility that some of the performance issues are left out. The only way to identify such gaps is through testing. You will have enough time to address these issues, unlike when you identify them in the middle of a calamity.
How to Set-Up a Business Continuity Concept
You should not wait until a disaster strikes to formulate a response plan as it is a proactive measure to promote preparedness. Make sure that the plan is tailor-made for your business for maximum effectiveness. Below are some steps to set-up a business continuity plan.
Have a Team for the Job
Start by forming a business continuity team that will have the responsibility of implementing and executing your organisation’s continuity plan. How you create, your team depends on the size of your organisation. Based on the organisational structure you can plan how to integrate the program to the internal systems. The team should at least have a manager, an assistant manager and an administrative assistant drawn from each department in the organisation.
Conduct a Business Impact Analysis
The next step after assembling the team is to understand your business’s financial, physical and operational risks in case of a disruption. You can use a business impact analysis to identify the risks and threats to your business. This includes business operation, reputation, financial performance and supply chains.
Apply Gap Analysis to Identify the Resources needed
Gap analysis is needed whenever there are discrepancies between the resources required in case of a disturbance and the actual resources available. Gap analysis helps in identifying the organisation’s recovery requirements versus the resources available. The analysis also reveals the documented strategies and agreed-upon recovery options.
Explore and Implement Recovery Strategies
Identifying your risks is essential. It will only be of help if you know how to react and recover after unanticipated events. This step is about identifying the recovery strategies and finding ways to implement them. The discussion should assist the team in coming up with a recovery plan for each risk.
Test the Results and Give Recommendations
Since organisational risks and requirements change from time to time, it is wise to test the plan continously. Furthermore you can determine whether the current plan is effective. So you can give recommendations on areas that need some improvements.
The Main Points of a Business Continuity Management Concept
Human Resources
Managing human resources is one of the vital components of BCM. Humans are the most important, but most unpredictable elements of a business continuity plan. You can have a perfect business continuity team, but you cannot predict how they will behave when disaster struck. For example, your company can have an ideal disaster response plan with a well-trained crisis management team, but they may be overwhelmed by the happenings and concentrate on their families and friends rather than fulfilling their responsibilities.
Information Technology
The protection of business IT systems and vital business data is critical to avoid loss in case of a disaster. Often there are no set standards on how to value systems and data in an organisation. This means an organisation may not be in a position to make the right decision when choosing the best back-up solution that reflects the current value.
IT has evolved significantly over the past few decades, but organisations still face challenges of cyber security. It goes without question that businesses should invest in a data storage solution. The IT-department needs to have a solution for cyber security threats to avoid losing the data.
Supply Chain
Business continuity cannot succeed unless you incorporate supply chain as an essential part of the company’s business continuity planning. Continuity of the supply chain is more complex today than before due to the increased complexity of supply chain function caused by global sourcing, just-in-time inventories, leaner supply chains, an increased number of new products and many more.
Supply chain involves a unique factor in business continuity as it consists of working with several third parties to plan and execute in times of need. Global sourcing is more prone to disruptions, meaning it increases the continuity risk of a company, especially when a company relies on imported raw materials.
Contact us to set-up a business continuity management system for your business.
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