From cyberattacks to extreme weather events, the range and severity of business risks are increasing. No matter the size of the business, a business continuity plan (BCP) is essential to mitigate the impact of disruptions to your business.
How creating an effective Business Continuity Plan can help your business avoid costly downtime and other expenses.
What Is a Business Continuity Plan?
A BCP is a document created to help an organization continue normal operations — or restart them quickly — when a natural disaster, power outage, equipment failure, cyberattack, or other disruptive event occurs. This detailed playbook lays out the procedures and instructions that employees should follow during the event. The focus of a BCP is to minimize disruptions to processes and workflows and to reduce the loss of data and resources.
What Are the Key Components of a Business Continuity Plan?
To develop a robust BCP, you must first assess your business processes to determine which ones are the most critical to your operations and which ones are the most vulnerable. This requires identifying the risks to your operations and the potential outcome of those risks. A thorough risk assessment will guide you in drafting a BCP that’s reasonable for your business’s specific needs.
At a minimum, a BCP should include these elements:
Recovery time objective (RTO)
Recovery time is the amount of time between the beginning of a disruptive event and the resumption of your operations. Your RTO is your target time for being up and running.
Recovery point objective (RPO)
Recovery point objective focuses on how much data loss a business can tolerate without causing significant harm, measured from when a disruptive event occurs back in time to the last data backup. RTO helps you determine suitable data backup strategies.
List of essential tools and resources
A list of all your business systems, software, and tools that may be used in recovery efforts provides a framework for determining specific responses.
Plan of action
Your detailed master plan should include all of your systems, where data is located, steps to take, and other directions.
Step-by-step guide
Create a playbook for staff to use so that they have a resource to follow when reacting to a disruptive event. To avoid confusion during a time of stress, keep the instructions simple.
Staff responsibilities
Your BCP should clearly define employee roles during a disruptive event.
Disaster recovery plan
Restoring IT functions after a disruptive event is an indispensable part of a BCP. A disaster recovery plan focuses on what happens after an event, establishing the policies and processes that will be used to recover and continue operations of critical IT infrastructure, software, and systems. Many disaster recovery solutions are available, and cloud solutions avoid the costs of setting up an internal disaster recovery data center.
What Are the Top Benefits of a Business Continuity Plan?
For SMBs, developing a BCP may seem like a challenge in terms of time, money, and other resources. However, the impact of a major business interruption can result in greater long-term costs, so making the effort before a disruption occurs provides a range of benefits, including:
Avoiding confusion
Even if you’re confident that your staff can handle any disruption that they will face, it’s best to have a plan so everyone knows their responsibilities and can work together more effectively.
Boosting safety
A BCP helps ensure that your employees remain as safe as possible during a natural disaster, power outage, or other event that may threaten their comfort, health, or life.
Limiting downtime
It’s vital for SMBs to get up and running as quickly as possible after an event that disrupts business operations to avoid revenue and customer losses.
Reducing costs
The financial impact of downtime can be very high for SMBs in terms of loss of productivity, physical damage, loss of customer trust, and data loss. Having a BCP in place helps you minimize consequences and reduce costs.
Offering peace of mind:
Having a BCP reduces management and staff worries about what they will do if a disruptive event occurs.
What Are Common Mistakes to Avoid When Creating a Business Continuity Plan?
When developing and implementing a BCP, keep these common mistakes in mind to ensure you provide your team with the right tools to respond successfully to a disruptive event:
Lack of leadership support
Without C-suite and management buy-in, a BCP may fall short when a disruptive event occurs. Leadership should be committed to dedicating the time and resources to ensure the development of a robust plan.
Weak security measures
Ransomware, malware, and other types of cyberattacks are constant threats, so having strong anti-software, firewalls, password policies, and other up-to-date cybersecurity measures to protect IT networks and sensitive business information is a must.
Not backing up important data
Automated backups and offsite storage reduce the risks of loss and disruption by lowering the likelihood of losing customer information and other essential business data.
Neglecting to test
Conducting tests and drills uncover weaknesses in a BCP so that they can be fixed. They also help management and employees respond better when a real incident arises.
Taking the Next Step in Creating a Business Continuity Plan for Business
SMBs have many strategic priorities, but they should not overlook the importance of operational resilience. Creating robust business continuity and disaster recovery plans will mitigate the operational and financial impact of a disruptive event. For more information on BCPs and disaster recovery plans — and to receive a free network security assessment — contact us today.
