A business continuity plan is a detailed procedure and set of steps that help keep your business intact and running even during tough times. Whether it is a physical disaster or a technological problem, an effective business continuity plan is all that you need to keep your organization stable. However, it is essential that you create a perfect plan, so you need to follow specific steps to ensure efficiency.
Steps to Create an Efficient Plan
We can classify the steps for creating an effective business continuity plan into five parts:
Identify Objectives and Goals
Like any other task, making a continuity plan also requires the initial steps to gather your goals. Business management’s scope stretches way before the boundaries of information technology. Therefore, you need to be precise and clear in your objectives and goals. A primary aim of a continuity plan is to keep the business running without any disruptions. However, each business varies from the other so that it will have its layout for the goals.
Establish an Emergency Team
In difficult times, you must have a team to manage the situation. It is best if you choose the members of this team for various departments. Furthermore, it is wise to appoint a leader for this team who can appropriately manage and guide others.
Perform a Risk Assessment
Before you begin drafting your business continuity plan, you should be aware of your organization’s potential threats. The better you know about the problem, the crisper your solution would be. You can also conduct a business impact analysis to analyze the most significant threats.
Identify Critical Functions and Key Business Areas
There are various departments and functions of an organization, so you need to figure out which of your functions is critical. Similarly, it would be best if you found out the key business areas to emphasize them in your business plan. An organization runs around the following functions:
- Customers
- Team members
- Suppliers
- Inventory
- Shipping
Each of these functions has its plan, but the one which is a critical function needs to be handled with extra care.
Determine Acceptable Downtime
Practically no business does not face downtime. Thus, you must determine the acceptable range of downtime for your critical functions. You need to analyze this point carefully because the acceptable downtime should not harm your organization.
Finally, you can devise a business continuity plan now and present it to your team.
Conclusion
While running a business, you are never certain about what is coming ahead. Thus, it is best to keep yourself prepared for all the ups and downs in your business journey. Consider preventative measures and enlist a penetration testing company.
