How to create a Business Contingency Plan
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In Every business no matter how big or small can be exposed to the potentially crippling effect of serious incidents that prevent that business from being able to operate normally. Incidents could include extreme weather disruptions such as snow/flooding, information security incident or a serious computer malfunction.
Directors and senior members of management are responsible for recovering the business from incidents such as these and ensuring minimum disruption is felt across the board with a minimum cost to the business, in order for the plan to achieve optimum success in a crisis requires planning and preparation of the highest level.
This can be a daunting task for businesses as the success or failure of the business in a crisis could lie in your hands. To ensure that your business is best prepared for such events a Business Contingency Plan needs to be built.
Where to start?
One of the most important things to remember when beginning this process is that once complete the development and maintenance of the plan is paramount. It would defeat the object of the plan to be attempting to create it at the time it is needed or retrospectively. Potentially damaging incidents can occur at any time, your business needs to be prepared for that.
The plan needs to be developed with a team with members from every aspect of your business so that every functionality is covered. Depending on the size of your business the plan will need to be formalised and approved by CEO, Managing Director or similar.
Assessment of Impact
The first task to undertake is preparation of a comprehensive list of all incidents that could be detrimental to your business and exactly how they could affect your business operations. No matter how remote the chance seems for some items on the list if there is a risk that it could happen you need to make a note of it on your list.
After the list has been complied a probability rating needs to be entered alongside each scenario along with a rating for the potential impact severity level. After this information has been collated it will be much easier for you to formulate a contingency plan with the biggest risk being planned for first with the lowest risk factor being addressed last.
Development
Once it has been established what factors pose the most risk, how they pose a risk, and what operations of the business it would affect the structure of the plan can now be addressed.
Your plan will consist of milestones to assist in your business recovery from disruption to normal operating state. The first milestone to consider is the time immediately after the incident that has caused the disruption; this could mean contact details of emergency services and any other specialists that deal with that specific kind of disaster/extreme situation. This part of the process deals with the immediate aftermath.
Determining what critical business functions need to be resumed as a matter of urgency and in what order will be the next step of developing the plan. The plan will identify key players in the business who are require to be familiar with what is required of them should the business contingency plan need to be actioned.
Testing
Once the plan has been created it should be subject to rigorous testing in your working environment. The testing process must be sufficiently planned in order to replicate authentic conditions as far as possible.
The plan must be tested by all involved should the contingency plan need to be put into action. It is recommended to test the plan at least every few months, with procedures carried out in the test being recorded and relevant feedback given. This will ensure that the plan is kept as up to date and finely tuned as possible.
It is equally as important to ensure that the plan is audited regularly and any gaps in the plan addressed immediately.
HR Involvement
The role of HR in the plan is paramount. They should be involved in every step of the planning process as it will be their role to carry out related duties regarding staff and HR issues surrounding any potential incidents.
It is important to obtain feedback from all staff in order to ensure that responsibilities and duties are understood, any potential issues are dealt with and the plan has the best chance of success.
Maintenance
The plan must always be kept up to date with regular reviews being carried out with more thorough reviews carried out if there are any changes to the business and its premises so it always reflect the current circumstances.
A member of your staff should be assigned the responsibility of ensuring the plan is maintained and kept up to date and any changes properly communication to the rest of the staff.
Any changes identified must be fully tested as the plan is modified as well as personnel being informed of any such changes with regards to their duties and responsibilities increasing or decreasing.