FOCUS COVID-19 – business continuity
place to work remotely. Some businesses invest in alternative office arrangements, or have plans set up for teams to work in other offices across the country.
During the pandemic, we have seen
how effective working remotely can be, so most businesses will probably default to this option should disruption occur that prevents staff accessing a physical office. It’s worth noting though that just because it has worked before does not guarantee that it will continue to do so. Team dynamics can change, customer expectations may be different, and your business must be prepared to adapt and amend the plan accordingly. Your priorities should be minimising losses,
keeping customers, retaining staff and securing their jobs, plus maintaining your reputation. When developing the plan, bear these key areas of importance in mind with a view to doing everything possible to minimise the impact of a disaster. Begin to develop short, medium and long term contingencies for every aspect of the business that could be affected by an incident. This includes business processes; IT
infrastructure and cyber security; assets and equipment; staff members; supply chains and the physical site or building. Include key contact information for your senior leadership team, emergency responders, suppliers and customers, if relevant. Should disaster strike, you will need to get in touch with them as soon as possible. Even when you have a final
26 JULY/AUGUST 2020
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draft of your business continuity plan, your work is far from over. The plan should be a live document and considered a work in progress. Things change, businesses evolve and processes develop, so the plan needs to be responsive to this, and should be tested and updated accordingly every year to ensure that it is accurate.
Types of plan
A business continuity plan looks at the entirety of your business operations – it is a fully comprehensive plan of action. Whatever the disaster, it will help your business to continue as normal for the longest period of time, minimising disruption and associated losses. A disaster resilience plan is more focused on technology, and how a business will respond and recover from an incident such as data loss or a malicious hack. Your IT department will need to be involved
in creating both plans, as any large scale disaster will undoubtedly have an impact on the business’s technology. For example, how can a business recover data from a back up system if there is a fire? What procedures would you need to put in place if all of your staff needed to work remotely following total building loss? As more and more businesses rely on
technology, it is imperative that IT infrastructure is robust, with a detailed back up plan in place to make sure any disruption will not affect the business’s success long term.
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