Are you prepared in case your business is disrupted? Any company that didn’t have a continuity plan when the world abruptly changed in 2020, struggled to survive. As the way we did business dramatically changed, business owners were caught out except those with plans in place to pivot in case of disaster.
Now, if you don’t already have a business continuity plan it’s time to seriously take some time to contingency plan known risks and potential interruptions or breaches.
Business Continuity Vs Disaster Recovery – What’s the Difference?
Both types of planning focus on business continuity. Your disaster recovery plan is a subset of your overall continuity plan and deals with what steps need to be taken in case of an attack or major failure. It includes allocating roles to staff members and ensuring they are trained and able to step in at a moment’s notice.
Disaster recovery is primarily data-driven and outlines how data is to be stored post-disaster so that it is easily accessible. Whereas business continuity also covers the management of identified risks and determines the supervision and planning a business needs to remain operational throughout a disruption.
Navigating Fallout Without a Business Continuity Plan Has Real Consequences
Everyone is busy, they focus on the tasks in front of them and leave the long-term planning until later. But what happens when later never comes and disaster strikes, and you are not prepared?
Here are some of the real impacts that the lack of forward thinking can have on your business.
Total business failure
Not everyone survives disruption, that’s a key learning from 2020-21. Way too many businesses failed and while there is more than one reason for this sadly, neglecting to contingency plan and assess risks is a key factor for many of the businesses that permanently closed their doors.
Disruption can be financially damaging
Without a plan to mitigate financial loss, data breaches, natural disasters, and other crises can be excessively harmful to your business. With a simple plan in place, damage can be reduced and, instead of chaos following a crisis, employees are empowered to act and immediately move to the recovery process.
Damaged reputation
You work hard to establish your brand. Things unfortunately happen and customers will create a perception of your brand depending on how you handle an attack or crisis. If you bumble around, unprepared and uncommunicative, customers will stop trusting you.
You need to communicate strong messages using up-to-date information to create a positive perception. When you shape the conversation and keep ahead of media commentary, you have a much better chance of retaining a positive brand identity.
Interrupted productivity
When productivity is impacted, the fallout is felt in all areas of your business. Ensure employees and stakeholders are given the latest information following a disruption and have a plan to lessen damage, that kicks in as soon as the interruption is detected.
Get Started on Your Business Continuity Plan with Our Quick Checklist
The hardest thing about a business continuity plan can be knowing where to begin. Use our simple checklist to get started:
- Create a team to oversee the planning: having a dedicated team helps to keep the plan on track. Be specific and allocate tasks to individuals, and make sure key personnel are included.
- Map out your strategy: determine your objectives and establish goals – make sure they are clearly defined and communicated. To do this, list possible disruptions, determine critical functions, and then devise recovery strategies for every potential disruption.
- Run an impact analysis on your business: analyse the threats you have already identified, this will vary depending on your industry, and geographical location. Remember to include external as well as internal risks.
- Knowledge empowers your employees: once you have your plan, make sure that staff are trained in the objectives, necessities, and key components of the plan and the roles that they are assigned to.
- Continually update your plan: test your business continuity plan on a regular basis. Run simulations and make sure your plan is adjusted to include changes in your operation. If something in the plan isn’t effective, tweak it to ensure that it will minimize disruption during a crisis.
A Few Last Words
Don’t set your business up to fail, creating your business continuation plan is a simple process. Contingency planning and empowering your staff can easily be the difference between succeeding and failing in the face of disruption.
