Secure Your Business - Effective Business Continuity Planning
A number of the businesses with whom I deal have some kind of contingency plan for when something goes wrong, but a larger number don’t. Faced by an ever-faster moving world where information is available almost instantaneously and where there is either more than plenty of competition or potential for hugely negative publicity and/or litigation, all businesses need to be aware of what events or hazards could seriously impact their ability to do business.No one business will require the same solution as another, so each Business Continuity Plan will be unique. The good news is that there’s a relatively simple framework that you can follow. It doesn’t matter in which order you address the points below, but address them you should. Here are some of the issues to consider:
Location: Where is your business located and how easy would it be for staff, suppliers and emergency services to get there in the event of (say) floods or other disasters? How do raw materials get there?
Product: What’s your product or service? What could interfere with its production? Suppose your main supplier of raw materials can’t deliver? What if your distributor can’t take goods from the premises?
Premises: What would you do if your premises suddenly became unavailable for whatever reason? How long could you operate without them? Do you need a “contingency” or “backup” office and/or warehouse?
People: Who are
the critical members of your team who keep things going? Who are the ones who must be functioning as
soon as possible in the event of a problem?
(Hint: it’s not always who you think it is).
Power: Most businesses need electricity, gas, water to function. Suppose your utilities are cut off?
Technology: How reliant is your business on “the computer”? What happens if “the computer crashes”, or premises aren’t available?
Finance: How will you make/receive payments if you can’t get to your premises? How do you track which bills are becoming due and which debts owed to you are due?
Communications: How will you communicate with staff, suppliers, buyers, regulatory authorities, banks, lawyers, accountants, etc? Who needs to know if there’s a problem? What will their role be?
Records/Information: What records and/or information are critical to your ability to do business? How do you secure this?
Environment: Could a problem at your premises affect the local environment?
There will be other issues that you will need to think about
for your own business, but the list above covers the main areas of concern to
most businesses.
If there’s a disaster, how long will it take you to recover to “Business As Usual” (BAU)? What intermediate stages will you go through? You can only really know the answers to this by TESTING your plan and processes. The first time that they tested their plans, one of my clients found out that their data recovery processes and plans weren’t effective. They were able to address this with their external IT contractor, rather than find out “the hard way” that they had no information when it really mattered.
Although you might be able to “wing it” when disaster strikes, the likelihood is reducing for many businesses, so it pays to invest time in planning. If you need help, talk to me.
Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Risk
posted by William Martin @ 15:44
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