I remember working at the office one day when the fire alarm suddenly went off. Everyone rushed to evacuate. Luckily, no damage was done, and everything was quickly brought under control. But the scare left me thinking: What if it hadn't been?
The critical need for preparedness is exactly what a business continuity plan is for. A business crisis can cost your company money and its reputation. I believe that customers aren't very forgiving, especially when the crisis stems from preventable mistakes within the company. That said, solid business continuity planning is required to uphold essential functions in the face of a crisis.
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Business continuity planning is the process of creating a plan to address a crisis. While planning, consider the variety of crises that could potentially affect the company and prepare a resolution for each.
A business continuity plan is important because regular operations will need to continue in the event of a crisis — and sometimes, especially during a crisis. 89% of business leaders have resilience among the top in the list of strategic organizational priorities. Business continuity planning helps build that resilience.
I believe having a business continuity plan is not only about maintaining your operations. It’s about the well-being of your workers. It’s about ensuring swift recovery. It’s about maintaining client expectations. It’s about successfully executing your crisis communication plan. It’s about complying with regulations. It’s also about your profitability.
Business continuity management oversees a business's continuity plan and makes necessary changes to it when needed. This type of management determines the potential threats to a company and how each of these threats might impact business functions.
In other words, business continuity management is how you are able to tweak the company's continuity plan to address any new potential hazards.
I believe the biggest responsibility of business continuity management teams is to plan for disaster recovery — a component of the business continuity plan that specifically focuses on product issues. Business continuity management also includes crisis management, contingency planning, and emergency management.
Regularly test and adjust your plan as time goes on to make sure it‘s still effective and addresses your company’s needs.
Next, I‘ll go over different types of business continuity that could impact your organization. These will set the foundation for the business continuity examples and templates I’ll share later on.
Operational continuity means that the systems and processes your business relies on are able to continue functioning without disruption.
I like to include all processes related to warehousing, suppliers, and product back-ups in my plan. In case disruption occurs, mitigation plans for these three bases are sufficient to minimize revenue loss.
It’s obvious that organizations rely on technology to ensure the integrity and continuity of systems — but I would caution against any over-reliance.
For example, while the functionality of Google Drive is not within your realm of control, there are many internal systems that you'll want to maintain and mitigate. I believe including processes for having an offline file storage system to access important documents should be the top priority.
Economic continuity is the ability of your business to continue being profitable during possible disruptions. What I would do in my business continuity planning is map out all the negative scenarios that could hit my bottom line.
If I’m brainstorming with team members, I’ll deploy the “Yes, and” strategy to come up with all possible scenarios. Then, I’ll think of the best mitigation solution for each case. Voila! My organization is successfully future-proofed.
Workforce continuity means that you'll always have enough staff to handle the work that comes through your doors. In my business continuity plan, I will also focus on having the staff necessary for times of crisis.
Classifying workers according to their skill set will come in handy. In times of crisis, it is an asset to know which of my employee’s personalities is best suited to lead others, which person is the most proactive, etc. In fact, 57% of organizations believe that upskilling their leaders is an important element for building future-proofing resilience.
Workforce continuity goes beyond planning the right roles and staffing the right people to fill them. In order for staff to show up every day and perform well, they must feel safe to do so.
Create a comfortable work environment. Ensure that, even during a crisis, people have the tools they need to succeed. The value of feeling supported in a workplace cannot be overstated.
Environmental continuity means that your team is able to operate effectively and safely in their work environment. For instance, if the production center is in a coastal region likely to be affected by tsunamis or hurricanes, I would develop plans of action in my business continuity planning if these environmental hazards occur.
You want your employees to be safe. You also want your employees and business assets to be secure as well. Security breaches can cause major harm to your operations, safety, and reputation.
I like to develop my plan of action presuming that the information has been compromised. This way, I am able to give top priority to employee security and safety of important business information.
Customer satisfaction and a good reputation can fuel your flywheel and result in increased revenue. The flip side of this coin, however, is that a tarnished reputation can cause great harm.
Ensure reputation management is a top priority by actively monitoring conversations about your brand or business. Prioritize customer satisfaction. I also recommend coming up with action plans for rectifying situations if your reputation is called into question.
Disaster recovery plans are technical plans focused specifically on recovering from failures. On the other hand, business continuity plans manage relationships during a crisis. Disaster recovery plans are created as part of an overarching business continuity plan.
For instance, if my company goes through a large crisis — like our building being flooded — some of my IT services may be lost. So, in my larger business continuity plan I would include one or more disaster recovery instructions that would focus specifically on recovering those IT services.
Below I'll go over the process of writing a business continuity plan, starting with a free template you can use to follow along.
The business continuity plan template here suits most companies. Keep in mind that some sections might not be relevant to your business, so add or remove them accordingly.
Name of Organization
Date
1. [Purpose of the plan]
2. [Objectives of the plan]
For this section, jot down the primary goals for the business continuity plan, such as reducing impact and ensuring continuity of operations.
Uncover all the necessary information that helps you understand why the plan is necessary for your business. I would divide the plan according to the departments and the conditions that would trigger the business continuity planning.
This section is essentially the background information for your plan. It needs to be comprehensive. So, I would take anywhere from 1-2 weeks for the gathering process.
Manage, plan for, and communicate during your corporate crises with these crisis management plan templates.
