 Business Continuity Planning as a group exercise conducted by the key members of all the departments within a business to formally document a plan on how business operations will continue if they are unexpectedly disrupted. It is not only an IT problem but covers all areas of the business such as Logistics, Production, Customer handling, etc.
The end result is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP); a formal document kept by the Emergency team and key personnel that is tailored to fit an individual business. Typically, it would include:
- A list of key contact details
- The list of essential business requirements and processes
- Identification of risks and their impact on the business and its fuctions
- A strategy to manage and recover from an incident
It may take a few days of group work to get the information required for the document but it is invaluable if and when the time comes. On a marketing point of view, it could serve your business well in the tender for jobs at large commerical companies to prove that your business is serious about delivery to the customer whatever the circumstances are. It is a once-off exercise that can be reviewed periodically by the business personnel without the need of a consultant to update the document.
Dataserv has classifed this as a seperate exercise to Disaster Recovery Planning as it overlaps this phase and takes into account all your business functions - not just IT. To find out how you can get a BCP for your business, .
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