Business Continuity Management

You need to consider the alternative options if vital areas of your business become unavailable.

For example: 

• What would your business do if you lost some of your suppliers? Over what time period would it be tolerable?
• How would you cope if you were to lose the means to sell your product or service (e.g. do you require a physical site, the internet, and/or telephony?)
• Does your staff have the ability to work from home? Is this an option for longer term business continuity issues? Over what time periods would it be tolerable?
• What would your business do if some or all of your team were suddenly unavailable?  Can you reassign roles to alternative people? Over what time periods would it be tolerable for different people?
• How would you communicate/work with stakeholders if you lost ICT access? Over what time periods would it be tolerable?
• How would you cope without essential equipment/software if they became available? Is there an alternative type of equipment, do you have data backups? Over what time period could the changes be tolerated?

Write a list of key contacts

• Have you got the contact details of key stakeholders in the business?
• Who will you require support from if a business continuity incident was to take place?
• Are these details easy to find and access for anyone in the business who would need them?

Regularly test and update your business continuity plan

• It is recommended that all of the above tips are captured within a business continuity plan.
• This should outline your risks, procedures and details so anyone within the business knows exactly what to do and who to contact in an incident.
• Test this plan to make sure it actually works. Whilst you might have your mitigation methods in place, does this actually work for your business?
• Regularly update your plan. Details, risks and procedures often change so make sure these are captured in an updated plan!