Business Continuity Plans

Business Continuity Plans are no longer a nice to have, but have become a  necessity. Organizations are no longer limiting their scope to a disruption at the physical location, but they are beginning to consider the possibility of wider area outages and the necessary continuity strategies to deal with such outages.

Business Continuity Plans - Process

There are changes afoot. It was once thought that Business Continuity Planning was a project with a definite finish point. However, this is not the case. Creating the Business Continuity Plan is just a part of developing a Business Continuity program.

The process also includes evaluating costs, selecting an alternate site, making personnel aware of the Plan, updating the Plan and testing the Plan on a regular basis. This is also where the IT alignment comes in because everything that IT does must be in support of this plan.

Business Continuity Plans – first BIA and Risk assessment

Before you start a Plan, a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) should be conducted. A BIA establishes the scope of the Plan and determines how the organization's personnel will continue its business by defining its critical resources and their continuity timeframes deemed acceptable by management.

Each organization must select its criteria for business continuity timeframes based on its own specific factors of "how long is it acceptable for the organization's business processes to be down." Often this is based on the possible loss of income during any period of time that an organization is not responding to its customers.

Business Continuity Plans – first BIA and Start plan

Once the acceptable downtime is determined, the Plan can start being developed. The goal is to compose a document that details the procedures and resources necessary to restore critical business functions within the continuity timeframes.

This includes, relocating the necessary number of personnel, restoring the critical applications required to conduct business functions, transferring the organization's necessary phone numbers to an alternate site location and ensuring that the necessary equipment and supplies are available at the alternate site. Supporting documentation, such as third party and vendor contact information, is also included in the Plan.

Once the Business Continuity Plan is developed, it is important to remember that it is a "living document" and will need to be reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis as the size and requirements of the organization change. Maintaining the Plan and making your personnel aware of the Business Continuity program for your organization are important to ensuring that the Plan remains viable to your continuity needs.