BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
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Infrastructure Technology Group – Securing YOUR ability to RECOVER
Your business is at
RISK!...Every minute of every day your business runs the risk of losing money and time through unexpected happenings. These can range from the trivial costing a few dollars to major disasters costing enough time and money to prevent you from ever opening your doors for business again.
What can go wrong?
The list is endless but common occurrences include:
Computer failure
Most businesses rely to some extent on computers. Accounts, sales information, database, management reports etc are all vital to your business. If your computer network crashed or you lost your data, could you recover the lost information? How much time would be lost? How much business could you lose?
Telecommunications failure
If your phones went dead how would you cope? Would customers assume you had gone out of business? Would unanswered incoming sales enquiries end up being business for your competitors?
Natural disasters
Fire & flood damage can be incredibly expensive. Yes, you may be well insured, but insurance does not fully take into account the potential of lost business and lost time.
Human factors
Theft, sabotage, disgruntled employees can all have dramatic effects on your business viability.
The common thread in all of the above is that, although you cannot prevent risks becoming reality, you can have plans in place to ensure that your business will continue effectively and with minimum loss should any of these happen.
This approach is termed business continuity planning. Many businesses take the ostrich approach to business continuity planning: place your head between your legs and hope that nothing ever goes wrong. More enlightened businesses take business continuity planning seriously. These are the businesses that survive disasters; these are the businesses whose investors and shareholders are fully protected.
The following describes how to set about developing a business continuity plan for a small business, and what to take into account.
The process of business continuity planning
Step 1 - Assess Risks
The first step in preparing a business continuity plan is to make an honest appraisal of the risks that your business faces. This is a similar process to the well-known SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). Risk assessment is, in effect, taking the threats part of SWOT and extending it.
The best procedure is to look at the day-to-day activities of your business. What could happen that would prevent things carrying on normally? Consider things on a
macro level (fires, floods, terrorism etc) and things on a micro level (computer problems, power cuts, telecommunications problems, theft etc).
Step 2 - Determine exposure
Step 2 is to determine how exposed your business is to the risks that you have identified in step 1. What protection do you already have in place? What areas are unprotected?
Step 3 - Decide commercial priorities
Having assessed your exposure you now need to decide the commercial implications of the risks that your business is exposed to. Every business has mission critical business areas. Risks that affect mission critical areas are priorities for action. For example if your business relies on telephone sales for new business or appointment making, your telecommunications system is mission critical. If you have a problem you will lose money. If you have a major problem you could lose a lot of money. Mission critical business areas must be protected against risks.
Step 4 - Determine measures
In step 4 of the business continuity plan you decide what measures you can put in place to achieve two things:
a) Prevent risks becoming reality
b) Minimise commercial damage if a risk event does occur.
Not all risks are preventable, but steps can be taken to minimise the likelihood that they will happen. For example theft is unpreventable, but there are many physical measures which can make theft much more difficult.
If a risk event does take place you need to be in a position where you can return to normal as quickly as possible. For example if your computer crashes and you lose all your database records you will be able to return to normal in a matter of minutes if the database is adequately backed up. If it isn’t the time lost and money expended to rectify the problem could be considerable.
Step 5 - Produce a plan
Put a plan together. A business continuity plan must exist on paper not simply in your head! Should a risk event happen it is much easier to coordinate an effective and rapid response if you have a written plan to follow. Also, you may not be at your premises when something goes wrong, but if you have a written plan which is copied to business managers (and understood by them) business continuity measures can swing into action immediately, without the panic which might otherwise occur. It might seem a laborious procedure but to have a simple "if this happens, do this, contact these people, phone this number" plan is essential.
Step 6 - Educate staff
To ensure that your business continuity plan is effective it is normally a good idea to make employees aware of its existence, the reasons for it and its main thrust.
Some areas of the plan may be commercially sensitive, so how much of the plan is made available is a decision that must be made carefully.
Step 7 - Test the plan
A plan on paper is of little use if it is not tested. Testing normally means simulating a potential risk event and seeing how well your business continuity plan copes.
Obviously you must also bear in mind what you are going to do if your plan does not cope and your test turns into a real risk event! Lessons learned from tests will help to refine your plan.
Step 8 - Update the plan
Businesses change, develop and grow. Your business continuity plan must do likewise. Plans should be reviewed regularly and updated where necessary.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Business continuity planning can seem an onerous task. But it is essential.
You would not leave other aspects of your business to chance. You have a business plan to ensure that the business grows. You have a marketing plan to ensure that you sell your product. Business continuity planning is no different - it is essential to ensure the long-term health of your business.
Infrastructure Technology Group are available to assist with your Business Continuity Planning - either technically or from a business perspective - too quite different topics. Please don't hesitate to contact us for :