A good Business Continuity plan can be the difference between a business floundering or surviving in a crisis. James Butland, VP Global Banking, Airwallex, a global digital payment network for businesses working across countries, outlines the three key pillars considered the core framework for building a robust continuity plan.
No matter the size of the business, the unexpected happens, things will go wrong and decisions will need to be made – hopefully fast and with beneficial results. It can be hard to plan in the moment. When there are multiple decisions to be made, and it’s not clear what the most important, the most time-critical should be taken first.
Business Continuity is a business’ ability to continue to operate, functioning as effectively or ‘normally’ as it can during and after an unusual or disruptive event. It’s the ability to plan for and manage a disruption so the business can keep operating –keep serving customers, keep working, keep paying staff. Having a plan gives the organisation a canonical process to manage during panicked times.
Depending on the nature of the business and the specific challenges it might be expected to meet perhaps every few years – from burglary to flood – specific plans are a good idea. But a great Business Continuity plan actually sits at a higher level of planning than for any specific event instance. The best planning provides the framework for the business to continue to operate as a variety of crises hit and provides procedures to follow to ensure your business is managed successfully during these times.
The plan, when understood, practiced and carried out, goes a long way to reducing confusion, to ‘failing safe’ – or not failing at all. It helps all members of staff know what to do, even if the nature of the crisis is not fully known. It stops people from acting in counterproductive or even dangerous ways.
The Business Continuity plan should act as a framework. It provides the overarching structure for any response. How your business responds to specific disruptions can be detailed in individual incident response elements within the plan. This can include planning for:
- Natural disasters such as bad storms, fires, or floods
- Global pandemics, trade wars, or immigration bans
- IT events such as cyberattacks, network failures, etc.
- Financial crises like recessions or a run on the banks
- Issues at any point along the supply chain
- Health and safety, such as what to do in the event of workplace injury or illness
Does every business need a continuity plan?
Yes. There are no ifs or buts. If you wouldn’t drive without a destination in mind, knowing the rules of the road to get there safely, or a SatNav to help when a route is blocked, then don’t run a business without preparing for managing the downs – life is not all ups after all. Business managers should be prepared for all the eventualities listed above that apply to them, their business, their premises – and likely a lot more items specific to where they are sited and what they handle.
It’s worth brainstorming with a variety of your people from all levels and looking at best practices of plans from other businesses. Consider all kinds of incidents, from power loss to data loss, cyberattacks, to a vehicle crashing through the door. Go beyond the business site too. Ask, what if an event puts the management team out of action – unable to communicate? Who takes over? Even a small business is empowered by such planning.
Create the Business Continuity plan
Start simple and create the core framework and then build out the specific elements of the overall plan from there. There are three key pillars to the core framework for the plan.
ONE: Plan for risks
AKA a business impact analysis, it’s the starting line from which you can map out the business-critical activities that must be protected.
- Start by outlining the critical business activities that need to occur in order for your business to continue.
- Identify any potential risks that may impact these activities.
- Analyse the likelihood that these may happen.
- Evaluate the consequence of this disruption occurring. What will the impact be on your business? What will happen if your business stops performing a particular activity and how long can it survive without it? Then rank risks in priority order to determine a hierarchy of how and when to deal with them.
- Identify the processes and resources that help your business minimise these impacts.
TWO: Plan your incident response
Once you’ve outlined the risks and impacts of disruption on your business, you need to define how you’ll handle them. Identify your crisis response team, those among your staff who will be needed when responding to an incident. Also nominate who can take their place if they’re not available.
- Determine messaging and communication channels used during the crisis, including the timing of your communications. What will you say to your stakeholders? How often will you communicate with staff and clients, and how?
- Create a contact list with all the necessary contact details for communication in these times. This includes your internal staff, their families, clients, suppliers and even emergency service contacts. Depending on your communication channels, this can include phone number, address, email, Skype ID or Twitter handle.
- Use the processes you created in your risk planning to formalise the actions you’ll take when specific disruptions occur. This is where you should go into detail, so you can make it as easy as possible for any reader to understand what to do in a situation.
THREE: Plan the recovery
Once the disruption has occurred and it’s been managed successfully (hopefully the business is afloat and everyone is safe), it’s time for the recovery phase of the plan. Your recovery plan outlines the steps to take to resume your business-critical activities and the required timeframes, that will lead you back to business as usual –whatever that may look like.
- Determine the specific processes that will get your core business activities back online as quickly as possible.
- Identify the key resources and staff needed to complete these steps.
- Develop a checklist of key indicators to mark your recovery plan progress.
It’s all about peace of mind. Having a Business Continuity plan is a step to protecting against business risks and helps you to more safely manage them. If 2020 tells us anything, one of the lessons is that preparedness and resourcefulness is a great crutch in troubling times. Spend time on your continuity plan now. Be ready for whatever may come next and use the experience to develop a culture of preparedness amongst all your staff.