The Seven Success Factors for Your Business Continuity Plan

In 1993 a bomb in the Bishopgate district of the City of London caused £350 million worth of damage. A SafetyNet study revealed that of the companies without a contingency plan and affected directly by the incident:


-Only eight percent survived in the long term.
-The remaining 92 percent:
40 percent failed in the first 18 months.
12 percent failed within five years.
40 percent never re-opened.
You may be thinking that it is highly unlikely that a radical activist group will attack your business. We agree! Typically business disruptions result from simple incidents. Here are some incidents that have impacted on our business:

-Low level leak in dishwashing machine - need to relocate for four days whilst floor being repaired.
-Corrupted file causing computer startup problems - days of disruption trying to fix, finally reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling all applications.
-Power blackouts caused by events external to the business such as fires and storms - minor disruptions to business activities.
-Telecommunications cables being cut by gas company contractors - three days without telephones and email.
-Key people suffering illness at critical times - decrease in productivity.
Think about the impact on your business of electricity and gas outages, storm damage, fires, computer failure, or a sudden illness to vital staff. Research shows there is about a 30 percent chance that companies go out of business within two years. This is because they cannot regain customers lost through the inability to supply them during a disruption.
Will your business survive when a major disruption happens? For example, what would you do in the case of a major fire? The immediate emergency is over - your people are safe and emergency services and media have gone. Your building has been damaged and you will not have access for several weeks at least. You are tired and probably in shock. What do you do now?
If you have a business continuity (BC) plan the answer is easy - you implement the plan that will enable you to deliver essential products and services to your key customers. In the long term your business survives the disruption.

What is business continuity planning?
BC planning makes it possible for your organization to respond effectively and continue to function when a disruption occurs.
The BC planning process:


-Analyzes the business to identify possible impacts that threaten the survivability of the business.
-Develops appropriate actions to minimize the impact of disruptions.
-Tests the actions to determine effectiveness and improve the planned responses.
-Provides for the implementation and ongoing management and updating of the plan.
BC planning should not be confused with emergency response. Emergency response is what you do to ensure that people are safe and property is secured following an incident such as a flood, a fire or a major storm.
BC planning is focused on maintaining services to your customers to ensure that your business can survive. With a well implemented BC plan, your business has a high likelihood of surviving and minimizing the impacts of disruptions.

Seven success factors

1. Know why you are doing business continuity planning
You are doing this because you understand that a properly developed, tested and implemented BC plan is the means to business survival and reducing impacts when a disruption occurs. BC planning is also a means of achieving greater understanding of the business which can result in business improvement.

2. Use a project management approach

Project planning is critical to success! "Failure to Plan is a Plan for Failure." The basis for successful BC planning is to do just enough project planning to get the business continuity plan done. Keep the project to four main stages such as:


-Plan the project
-Analyze the business
-Develop the plan
-Manage the Plan.
3. Analyze your business

To develop an effective and successful plan you need to understand your business, its customers, its suppliers and the environment in which it works. Consult with your people when doing the analysis of the business - communications is the key to effective information gathering, analysis and understanding of your business.

It is important to get the plan started. Start with a broad detail level of analysis. Detail can be added later where required.

4. Manage the level of detail

It is very easy to end up in detail land and lose sight of the big picture. The priority is to develop an initial plan that can be improved as you test it.

5. Actively work on communications

Successful business continuity planning is dependant on effective communications. It is very easy to get wrapped up in the process of planning and lose sight of the need for communications. Set up your BC planning team and ensure that the team consults and communicates with all employees and staff. Conduct meetings to resolve issues.

6. Structure your business continuity plan around action plans

BC plans work well when they are structured around action plans for identified disruptions. Action plans provide focus whilst doing the planning. During a disruption information access is made easier when you can go straight to the action plan for a particular disruption.

7. Test your plan with drills and exercises

All businesses that report success with BC planning state that it is vital to set up and implement a BC plan test schedule. Use a number of ways to test your plan such as desktop reviews of the documents, desktop walkthroughs and scenario testing. A very powerful tool is to do a "real time" live test. This involves shutting down part of your business and testing your BC plan. This will cause you a disruption, but it will provide you with the best learning.
Review the outcomes of each drill or exercise. Update the BC plan accordingly and review your training plans. Carry out training where it is necessary to ensure an effective response capability.

Benefits of BC planning

The benefits of an effective BC plan include:


-Avoidance of business failure.
-Company image and credibility maintained and improved.
-Less downtime and so less impact on customers.
-Lowered costs or losses arising from a major disruption.
-Reduced impact on employees, customers, suppliers and the community.
-May reduce the organization's insurance premiums.
-Improves current business performance.
Summary

Develop a successful business continuity plan by keeping these main points in mind:

-Use a project management approach.
-Analyze your business in broad detail at first - add details as you develop and test your plan.
-Develop business continuity action plans to address disruptions.
-Set up a test schedule to test your BC plan and make sure you keep to the schedule.
-Update the BC plan and your BC training to keep all employees informed.
-Include your BC plan in induction training.
-Use appropriate tools such as business continuity planning software.
-Above all, keep the plan as simple as possible.