Imagine a computer virus or tech failure destroys your business’s electronic equipment and
data. Or imagine a natural disaster strikes your area, crippling transportation, communication,
supply chains, and the electricity grid. In either situation, would you be able to continue your
business operations?
Having a Business Continuity Program/Plan (BCP) in place helps ensure that your essential business functions can continue during and after a major disruption or disaster. The goal of a BCP is to restore business functionality as quickly as possible.
Developing a business’s continuity plan involves thorough risk assessments and impact analysis to plan the recovery of operations when confronted with disruptions such as a pandemic, natural disasters, technological failures, human error, or terrorism.
Each BCP will be different according to the business, its functions, geographic location, and the threats it faces; however, there are elements that are critical to consider for every plan.
Prepare – Consider what would be required to resume operations, and establish a procedure to have access to needed critical information. Include regular computer and electronic
information backups in your BCP, saving important electronic information offsite. Have a plan on how to access these in the event of a disruption.
Identify – Identify various risks that may threaten your business, and assess the impact that
potential damage and losses from those risks could have on your business. For example, if there
is a high risk of earthquake damage to your business’s headquarters, the BCP should identify
that as well as how such damage would impact the business. It should provide plans for
lowering losses and preparing for those that are unavoidable.
Develop – A BCP must include recovery strategies, objectives, and plans for specific disasters or
events identified in the risk assessments. Separate plans should be developed for each risk,
aimed at recovering the business. Cost, feasibility, logistics, operation locations, and IT
resources are a few of the things that should be considered when developing specific plans.
Train, Test, and Update – Implementation of the BCP is generally assigned to a program
coordinator selected by management, and it is their responsibility to develop, administer,
evaluate, and maintain the program. The coordinator must also work with management to
identify teams, objectives, provide plan training to employees, and regularly audit and update
the BCP to cover all relevant issues on an ongoing basis and to consider any new or emerging
risks as they are identified.
From pandemics to weather disasters, or tech failures to human error disruptions—it’s difficult
to know exactly when a disaster or major business disruption may strike. Being prepared with a
BCP can mean the difference between a minor delay and a complete collapse of operations.
Contact your agent today or email Safety@mmgins.com to learn more about how MMG Loss
Control can help you develop an effective Business Continuity Program/Plan.