A Quick Guide to Business Continuity Planning

December 31st, 2011 by Admin

What is Business Continuity Planning?

In simple terms Business Continuity is the process of planning and validating how to survive a disaster or incident that disrupts normal business. It describes how to prepare for, prevent, respond to, recover and restore critical functions and defines how a company will stay in business regardless of the source or scale of disruption – computer virus or crash, employee death or resignation, strike action, fire, flood, severe weather, terrorism, vandalism, robbery, pandemic illness, new legislation, random acts of God…

Why every company needs a Business Continuity Plan

There is evidence that companies without a business continuity plan are far more likely to collapse following an incident than those with a plan in place. This ability to demonstrate forward-thinking can also be very good for your company’s reputation, helping you secure funding or new business. Increasingly business continuity planning is a factor when customers are procuring or commissioning work from new suppliers. Insurance providers are also beginning to ask businesses about plans before agreeing to insure.

Investing in an effective approach to Business Continuity can be very attractive to senior or executive management as it brings numerous benefits to the business:

  • Reduced exposure of the business
  • Risk management process in place
  • More operational resilience as a result of identifying and reducing risks
  • Reduce downtime due to the identification of alternative processes and workarounds
  • Compliance issues can be identified and better managed
  • Compliance with Health & Safety legislation
  • Reduced exposure to liability actions
  • Improved security
  • Better protection of assets
  • Improved operational effectiveness as a result of process re-engineering
  • Ownership of key processes identified
  • Defined and documented recovery processes
  • Better record keeping
  • Share value protected
  • Supply chain resilience
  • Reduce insurance premiums
  • Competitive edge

The Business Continuity Planning Process

For Business Continuity Planning to be a success the Senior Management Team must buy-in to the process, this means supporting it with funding, resources, effective communication and if needed, training. A small team with wide experience from across the company should be appointed to take responsibility and the team’s coordinator should ideally have project management skills.

Phase 1 – Analysis & Development

The first step is to carry out a Business Impact Analysis and identify the most important aspects of the company’s operations and the likely weak points. It’s well worth doing some research on previous incidents that have happened in similar industries as well as the local area.

Resilience audits should be carried out to check systems and processes for dealing with disruption. These audits will highlight areas for improvement and the action needed.

All key personnel should be identified at this stage and succession plans created for them, key personnel are not necessarily senior managers it can be anyone with unique skills or knowledge.


Contractor Accountant
London based private detective service that provides vehicle tracking, surveilance and more throughout the UK.

Posted in Planning

Tags:

In A Crisis – Don’t Overreact

December 23rd, 2011 by Admin

The temptation to overreact in crisis is common. The result can be counter-productive, disruptive, ineffective, or lead to further problems. Of course the manager wants to be proactive; there are consequences for inaction, or delay. So the dilemma is obvious. Act now and pay the price later. Or don’t act and pay the price immediately.

A Measured Response

Emotions run high in times of crisis and often overrule good judgment. The adrenalin is rushing, the demands are great, and those impacted look to their leadership for solutions. But pause a moment, gather your thoughts and composure, realistically assess the situation and seek the best alternative. It generally helps to contact trusted advisers so that you garner a broader understanding and perspective.

Avoid the Media

The media may call, asking for a statement. Ever wonder why so often executives are unavailable for comment in the midst of a crisis? This is, of course, by design. A company spokesman whose comments do not carry the weight of a senior executive is often used to placate the media, until those in charge can formulate a response.

Frequently, the initial response will be something like: “We’re examining the situation.” Or, “We’re gathering the facts.” It’s a realistic way to “buy time.” And, of course, it’s true.

A Course of Action

Depending on the magnitude and complexity of the crisis, you need formulate a realistic response. Ideally, the organization will have done some pre-planning and considered various catastrophes: whether physical, financial, ethical, health, legal, competitive, etc. Even so a pre-packaged response may be inappropriate or require tailoring. A conservative, but timely intervention is usually best. This is not the time to experiment or play “cowboy.”

The “Best” Response

There may not be an ideal response to a crisis, but if there is, it would probably look something like this:

  • A thoughtful, realistic assessment
  • A timely, but not reactive (knee jerk) response
  • Good communication with all affected parties (stakeholders)
  • A well-designed plan with an excellent chance of success
  • A plan to achieve containment and limit damage and fallout
  • Active, aggressive actions to protect the company’s image and reputation
  • Extensive monitoring and follow-through
  • Actions to prevent a recurrence.

Posted in Crisis

Tags:

What Is the Difference Between Hot, Warm and Cold Disaster Recovery?

December 17th, 2011 by Admin

When it comes to implementing your business continuity plan what strategy do you adopt for the disaster recovery element? (for a description on the difference between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity please see my article on Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity?).

You may have heard the terms hot, cold and warm recovery, but what do they mean, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each service?

  • Hot Standby

Hot standby is normally available to the users within minutes of a disaster situation. This level of service is achieved by total duplication of the computer systems covered (hardware, software and data). There will also be a requirement for a resilient network connection into the Hot Site.

Benefits – Available immediately; dedicated to (customer).

Disadvantages – Cost; Complexity, management.

  • Warm Standby

Warm standby is normally available to the users within hours of a disaster situation. This is by far the most common type of service utilised by for I.T. disaster recovery, and typical recovery times range from 8 hours to 24 hours (dependant on complexity, location and data volumes).

The service can be delivered from a remote recovery centre, or alternatively, delivered to site in the event of a disaster. Depending on the equipment involved the configuration may be installed within an existing facility or a mobile recovery unit.

It should be noted that whilst the Hot standby option is normally dedicated to one customer, Warm standby is delivered on a subscription basis. Industry standards are between ten and twenty five subscribers per configuration. Availability is therefore not guaranteed in the event of a disaster. Testing is also normally to a predefined number of days P.A.

Benefits – Lower cost; reasonable availability.

Disadvantages – Availability; recovery timescales are longer; limited testing available; only available for a limited period following a disaster.

  • Cold Standby

Cold standby is the provision of computer and people facilities that are made available to the client within a few hours of the incident. Unless the service is backed up by a contract to supply the necessary computer equipment, the recovery period is likely to be several days. It is not unusual for Warm and Cold standby services to be combined, giving a very flexible approach to recovery.

Fully serviced office space is also available on a subscription basis. These are usually equipped with PCs, servers, printing facility and a network infrastructure. These would be described as Business Recovery Centres, and could also incorporate Cold space for central systems.

Benefits – Lower cost; large amount of available space (can accommodate large systems). Business recovery Centres can accommodate several hundred people.

Disadvantages – Availability; recovery timescales are longer; limited testing available; only available for a limited period following a disaster; additional recovery services needed.

Posted in Guides

Tags: