Creating a Business Continuity Plan 3 Important Steps

Many business owners spend a big portion of their budgets on insurance policies that cover just about every type of natural or manmade disaster that comes to mind. However, these insurance policies won’t help companies continue operations during or following a significant disaster; instead, it is up to the employees to continue to do business until recovery is accomplished. Every company should take the time to develop a business continuity plan (BCP).  Not only is it the least expensive form of insurance, but oftentimes, it proves to be the most effective for dealing with an unplanned incident.

 

Risk assessment

The first step in creating a BCP is identifying all possible risks. After all, if “prevention is the best medicine” then preventing consequences from happening in the first place is the best way to deal with them. The risk assessment is a three step process:

• Finding risks
• Understanding risks
• Documenting risks

After discovering the risks that threaten the organization, the next step in developing a business continuity plan is to determine the consequences of each risk. This is the only way to decide if these risks require mitigation.

 

Workforce assessment

Staff members are the main support system of any BCP. First, organizations need to figure out which employees are essential to continuity.  Which critical people must be available in the event of an emergency for the business to prevail? These employees must be given the information and the tools they might need before disaster strikes; otherwise, precious time will be lost because the business continuity plan won’t be implemented immediately.

 

Vendor assessment

The next stage of any BCP is identifying critical vendors. Do these organizations have their own business continuity plan? Would they be able to provide goods that are essential to your business in the event of an emergency? If you are not confident in the capabilities of your critical vendors then you may need to change your process when it comes to hiring and retaining them. This is an important part of creating a BCP because it affects your ability to continue supporting your business should a disaster occur.