Natural disasters or short business interruptions of any sort (power outages, employee threats, etc) can result in negative consequences to your business. However, proper planning will reduce the impact of negative effects and maintain business continuity through interruptions of any sort. Today’s post is a guest post by Chad Bowers, VP of Bold Planning Solutions. Chad explains 6 things you need to know about business continuity.
1. Business Continuity Plans helps management understand the most critical functions and roles of the organization; whether it’s financial related, legal obligations, customer driven, or other external pressures.
2. It’s important that your Business Continuity Plan be developed by a team of people with a broad understanding of the organization; not just created by one person.
3. Business Continuity Plans are definitely for use with large events/disasters, however, many continuity events are small, minor in nature but cause extensive business disruptions (Plumbing, Theft, IT outages)
4. The strategies you put together within your continuity plan address the same challenging questions you are going to face after an event occurs. So it’s best to approach these issues NOW while your facility is operating, your staff is calm, and management is clear minded and can think through the process.
5. Emphasize the planning process in developing your plan. A finalized continuity plan in a shiny binder is a good start, but making sure your management, staff, and external services providers understand your plan is what will increase your odds of bouncing back from a disruption.
6. Be sure your vendors/service providers have plans in place or take extra measures to seek out alternative vendors, just in case. Remember, your facility and business operations may be unaffected by an event, but what if your service providers are affected and can’t do their job? What are the indirect impacts to you organization and your ability to continue to operate?
Chad Bowers has worked in the Emergency Management industry since the beginning of 2001 and provides clients with a vast range of expertise including Continuity of Operations Planning, Hazard Mitigation Planning, GIS services, and web-tool development for the Emergency Management industry.
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