Four Keys to Successful Business Continuity Planning

Working on creating a contingency plan for your business? That’s great! Here are four things you need to consider when preparing your new business continuity plan (BCP).

Audit Your Business Continuity Plan
Having a BCP alone is not enough. You need to audit it at regular intervals to ensure it is up-to-date and relevant. Often, business continuity plans aren’t used for years, and may be obsolete or irrelevant by the time an actual emergency occurs.

Create a Team for Business Continuity
Constitute a team for your business continuity project. Decide who will take ownership of implementing the business continuity in the event of an emergency. Break down the business continuity plan into smaller elements and decide who is responsible for each of them. Also, remember to designate at least one backup for each person in the team.

Mock Drills and Dry Runs
After your business continuity plan is ready you need to check if it really works. A dry run will tell you if it is really effective and also point out loose ends, if any, that you can fix before an actual emergency.

Debrief
In case you do end up using your business continuity plan, make sure you do a debrief. It will help you determine the effectiveness of your business continuity plan. The brief should focus on identifying the losses you incurred from the disaster, the time taken for implementation of the BCP, the key positives of implementation of your business continuity plan and also offer suggestions, if any, for improvement. Regardless of the size of your business, business continuity planning is indispensable. Larger companies often have their own staff (IT as well as non-IT) for business continuity planning, but for SMBs to have their own business continuity planning team can be a bit of a strain on their resources. Consider teaming up with a MSP who is experienced in disaster recovery planning, so you don’t cut corners now only to regret later.