business continuity planning guide

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Understanding the Succession Planning Process

The process by which you train and prepare employees to fill crucial roles within an organization is known as succession planning. This process ensures that the business continues its day-to-day operations as usual. This article will highlight the steps in the succession planning process.

Timeline and Training

No matter the type or size of your organization, succession planning is essential to continue to have your business run smoothly upon your departure. It’s important to identify your successor well in advance so that they may be properly trained for the role. This training may occur years in advance of the anticipated exit from the company. You may identify someone who needs to start at a lower position within the company and work their way up through the ranks to achieve a thorough training and knowledge base or you may have to cross-train them for several different roles.

Identify the Positions Needing Successors

Although succession planning usually refers to high-leadership roles in a company, it can apply to other roles as well. One of the first steps in this process is to recognize which roles within your company will need a successor if the current employee leaves. You’ll want to analyze which positions impact the revenue or growth of the company. This profit could be compromised if a successor is not put into place.

Informing Key Players

You’ll want to have a discussion with all the key players, those currently in a role identified as needing a successor and those who you would like to groom to take the role over. You should make sure that everyone is agreeable and on the same page. The current employee should be willing to train their successor so that a seamless transition can take place once the time comes. The person identified as the successor should be motivated to learn the role they will step into one day and a timeline should be established. Typically these identified successors feel an increase of pride and a greater investment in the company, according to The Balance website.

Internal vs. External Successors

Identifying an internal successor has multiple benefits. They know the company’s culture, have a sense of loyalty from currently working there and have been through the basic training program. In addition, they know colleagues internally and may also know some of the external clients as well. In cases where a suitable internal employee can’t be identified, an external one may have to be. This will entail more effort and time to be invested in finding and training a suitable candidate.

Succession Planning Benefit

Succession planning is a key necessity in running an efficient business. You want to have a plan for the future of the company, and identifying and training successors to step into key roles will ensure that your organization doesn’t miss a beat.

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Writing a Business Plan

While it may be tempting to put off, creating a business plan is an essential part of starting your own business. Plans and proposals should be put in a clear format making it easy for potential investors to understand. Because every company has a different goal and product or service to offer, there are business plan templates readily available to help you get on the right track. Many of these templates can be adapted for any company. In general, a business plan writing guide will recommend that the following sections be incorporated into your plan.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is the first section that business plans open with, but is often the last section to actually be written as it’s the most difficult to write. The executive summary is a summary of the overall plan that highlights the key points and gives the reader an idea of what lies ahead in the document. It should include areas such as the business opportunity, target market, marketing and sales strategy, competition, the summary of the financial plan, staff members and a summary of how the plan will be implemented. This section needs to be extremely clear, concise and engaging as you don’t want the reader to push your hard work aside.

Company Description

The company description follows the executive summary and should cover all the details about the company itself. For example, if you are writing a business plan for an internet café, you would want to include the name of the company, where the café would be located, who the main team members involved are and why, how large the company is, who the target market for the internet cafe is, what type of business structure the café is, such as LLC, sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation, what the internet café business mission and vision statements are, and what the business’s short-term objectives are.

Services and Products

This is the exciting part of the plan where you get to explain what new and improved services or products you are offering. On top of describing the product or service itself, include in the plan what is currently in the market in this area, what problems there are in this area and how your product is the solution. For example, in a business plan for a food truck, perhaps there are numerous other food trucks in the area, but they are all fast –food style and unhealthy so, you want to introduce fast food that serves only organic and fresh ingredients every day. This is where you can also list your price points and future products or services you anticipate.

Market Analysis

The market analysis section will take time to write and research as a lot of effort and research need to go into it. Here is where you have the opportunity to describe what trends are showing up, what the growth rate in this sector looks like, what the current size of this industry is and who your target audience is. A cleaning business plan, for example, may include how this sector has been growing by 10% every year due to an increase in large businesses being built in the city.

Organization and Management

Marketing and sales are the part of the business plan where you explain how you will attract and retain clients. How are you reaching your target customers and what incentives do you offer that will keep them coming back? For a dry cleaner business plan, perhaps if they refer customers, they will get 10% off their next visit. In addition, you may want to explain what needs to be done in order for the business to be profitable. This is a great way of showing that you are conscious about what clear steps need to be taken to make a business successful.

Financial Projections & Appendix

The financial business plan section can be a tricky one to write as it is based on projections. Usually what is included is the short-term projection, which is a year broken down by month and should include start-up permits, equipment, and licenses that are required. This is followed by a three-year projection broken down by year and many often write a five-year projection, but this does not need to be included in the business plan.

The appendix is the last section and contains all the supporting documents and/or required material. This often includes resumes of those involved in the company, letters of reference, product pictures and credit histories. Keep in mind that your business plan is always in development and should be adjusted regularly as your business grows and changes.

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Business continuity planning

Business continuity planning helps your business respond to unexpected events and situations which can interrupt your operations.

Developing a business continuity plan will help your business minimise the impacts of these events and continue trading.

What is a business continuity plan

A business continuity plan is a document that explains the actions you should take before, during and after unexpected events and situations.

It is designed to help you:

• identify, prevent or reduce risks where possible
• prepare for risks that are out of your control
• respond and recover if an incident or crisis occurs.

Continuity planning for resilience

Business continuity planning is the process of creating a system in your business that helps prevent, minimise and recover from threats to your operations.

All businesses deal with risk. At any time, your business may experience:

• natural disasters (floods, storms, cyclones)
• power outages
• supply chain failures
• staff shortages

The aim of business continuity planning is to return to trading within the shortest period of time. This planning helps your business be more resilient and continue with minimal interruptions.

Examples: why continuity planning is important

A fire has destroyed all your stock in your warehouse. To continue to trade, could you:

• replace the stock quickly, or find another way of meeting the needs of your customers?
• replace stock quickly with your current suppliers?
• buy excess stock from your competitors?
• find a warehouse or other space to store stock if your own warehouse is unavailable?
• ship straight from the supplier to your customers (dropshipping)?

Imagine you were not able to run your business or communicate with staff and stakeholders for 6 months.

• Would your staff be able to run your business?
• Do you have a document or plan in a secure place that staff and stakeholders could access (e.g. in the cloud)?
• Does your plan include all the information needed to operate the business successfully in your absence?

Develop a business continuity plan

A typical business continuity plan has the following elements.

This section outlines the key objectives on your plan, and who needs to use it. It should also include information to help your staff to understand it.

In this section:

• executive summary
• distribution list
• glossary of terms used in your plan documents.

This section identifies possible risks to your business, and ways to manage them or minimise their impact on your business.

• identified risks
• preventative actions
• contingency plans
• business insurance details
• data security and backup strategies.

Learn more about:

• identifying and managing business risk
• business insurance
• IT risk management .

This section uses the risks identified in section 2 to review your critical business activities, forecast the impact of a disruption and work out how long it might take to recover.

Learn more about identifying and managing business risk .

This section describes how and when you'll activate your plan in response to a critical incident.

• immediate response checklist
• evacuation procedures
• emergency kits
• roles and responsibilities
• key contact lists
• preparing an incident response
• preparing for a natural disaster .

This section describes the methods you will use to recover quickly.

• recovery plan
• incident recovery checklist
• recovery contacts
• insurance claims
• market assessment
• staff mental health assessment.

Learn more about developing a recovery plan .

This section details how you'll test your systems and procedures. Use these reviews to evaluate and update your plan to be better prepared.

• training schedules
• review schedules.
• business processes, procedures, and standards
• industry codes of practice from WorkSafe Queensland, which set out work health and safety drill requirements (e.g. fire drills).

Business continuity plan template

The business continuity plan template will help you develop a:

• risk management plan
• incident response plan
• recovery plan.

Download the business continuity planning template .

Best practice in managing disaster risk — the PPRR model

The prevention, preparedness, response, recovery (PPRR) model is a cyclical way of handling disaster risk within your business. It's a useful example for your business continuity planning.

Reproduced from materials available on Prevention Preparedness, Response and Recovery Disaster Management Guideline published under a Attribution 4.0 International . © State of Queensland, 2022

This diagram shows the starting point of the model is prevention and mitigation, then moves to preparedness, followed by response, and finally recovery.

Use the PPRR model to:

• assist in developing your business continuity plan
• assist when conducting regular drills and rehearsals of emergency events
• identify gaps and areas for improvement
• ensure you are as prepared as possible.

The PPRR model is commonly used by Australian emergency management agencies because it is simple to understand and easy to remember and act on.

Small business examples of the PPRR model in practice

These examples help identify potential scenarios to consider for your business continuity plan.

Steps to prevent or eliminate risks

Example 1: Floods

When selecting a suitable premises for your business, check your local council's online flood maps and choose a location above flood levels of past floods.

If your premises is likely to be flooded, try to locate your building and structures above potential flood levels. Build accessible paths and driveways to allow continued access.

Learn more about preparing your business for natural disasters .

Example 2: Finances

Protect your finances by enabling additional security measures on your bank accounts and authorisations on payments. Set up a procedure to check all invoices, accounts and transactions regularly.

Contact your suppliers prior to payment to ensure the bank details listed on invoices are correct. These simple measures prevent fraud from within your business and theft through external cyber fraud.

• security and crime prevention
• managing financial risks .

Prepare your business to respond to and recover from an incident

Example 1: Bushfires

Identify what impact a bushfire might have on your business operations. This will not only include impacts to your business premises (e.g. loss of buildings and stock) but also wider impacts, such as how your local suppliers may be affected (e.g. limited orders, road or transport closures).

Develop emergency evacuation plans, and contact your local council for bushfire preparedness information for your area.

• preparing for a natural disaster
• bushfire preparation for small business .

Example 2: Losing a major customer

Losing a major customer can have a significant impact on your finances and may have implications for your staffing.

Consider how you could diversify products and services, or build your client base to ensure you're not reliant on the business of 1 customer.

Your response to contain and control an incident

Example 1: Economic downturn

An economic downturn is a normal phase in the business cycle. Customers may reduce spending and you may have to look at reducing stock or staffing levels.

A planned incident response will allow you to take immediate action to stabilise your business. Consider changing staff hours or renegotiating supplier contracts.

Learn more about surviving an economic downturn .

Example 2: Electrical fire

An electrical fire on your business premises needs a rapid response including making sure all staff are safe, evacuating and contacting emergency services.

A go-to kit with response checklists and contacts will help manage the incident.

• incident response
• emergency preparation for small business .

The steps and timelines to fully restore your business operations

Example 1: Drought

Recovering from drought in a rural area may require many steps to recover business customers and revenue, and is likely to take time.

Recovery could include attracting tourism to the area and broadening products and services. It may also require seeking financial assistance from the government and other sources.

• recovering after drought
• developing a recovery plan .

Example 2: Reputation loss

Reputation loss can be very difficult to recover from. You could consider engaging a public relations adviser, running a media campaign, retraining staff in customer service, and changing some products or services.

• recovering from a reputation incident

Train your staff

Include key staff when you develop and review your business continuity plan. This will help ensure your plan is comprehensive across all areas of your business, and help staff effectively respond to incidents. Make sure you introduce your plan to new staff as part of induction processes.

Use workplace simulations with staff to test and review your plan.

Workplace simulations of possible risks can help by:

• identifying how prepared you and your staff are
• revealing how quickly your staff can locate the plan, enact the incident checklists and put recovery actions in place
• identifying gaps and problems with the plan.

Simulation exercise

Your business experiences an IT outage. Many systems are affected including all your computers and telephones.

• Is your business continuity plan accessible in another location (e.g. a hard copy onsite, in the cloud accessible by a mobile phone)?
• Does your plan have a checklist of what to do including who to contact?
• Does your plan provide instructions on how to contact customers?
• How rapidly did the staff deal with the emergency and recover the business?

A team debrief after the simulation opens up discussion for review and changes based on staff feedback.

Also consider...

• Find out about identifying and managing business risk .
• Read about IT risk management .
• Visit the small business disaster hub to learn about managing natural disasters and other threats to your business.
• Last reviewed: 24 Nov 2022
• Last updated: 24 Nov 2022

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Business Continuity Planning

Organize a business continuity team and compile a  business continuity plan  to manage a business disruption. Learn more about how to put together and test a business continuity plan with the videos below.

Business Continuity Plan Supporting Resources

• Business Continuity Plan Situation Manual
• Business Continuity Plan Test Exercise Planner Instructions
• Business Continuity Plan Test Facilitator and Evaluator Handbook

Business Continuity Training Videos

Business Continuity Training Introduction

An overview of the concepts detailed within this training. Also, included is a humorous, short video that introduces viewers to the concept of business continuity planning and highlights the benefits of having a plan. Two men in an elevator experience a spectrum of disasters from a loss of power, to rain, fire, and a human threat. One man is prepared for each disaster and the other is not.

View on YouTube

Business Continuity Training Part 1: What is Business Continuity Planning?

An explanation of what business continuity planning means and what it entails to create a business continuity plan. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company that has successfully implemented a business continuity plan and includes a discussion about what business continuity planning means to them.

Business Continuity Training Part 2: Why is Business Continuity Planning Important?

An examination of the value a business continuity plan can bring to an organization. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company that has successfully implemented a business continuity plan and includes a discussion about how business continuity planning has been valuable to them.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: What's the Business Continuity Planning Process?

An overview of the business continuity planning process. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company about its process of successfully implementing a business continuity plan.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 1

The first of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “prepare” to create a business continuity plan.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 2

The second of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “define” their business continuity plan objectives.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 3

The third of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “identify” and prioritize potential risks and impacts.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 4

The fourth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “develop” business continuity strategies.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 5

The fifth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should define their “teams” and tasks.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 6

The sixth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “test” their business continuity plans.

Last Updated: 09/13/2023

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How to create an effective business continuity plan

A business continuity plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization must follow in the face of disaster, whether fire, flood or cyberattack. Here's how to create one that gives your business the best chance of surviving such an event.

We rarely get advance notice that a disaster is ready to strike. Even with some lead time, though, multiple things can go wrong; every incident is unique and unfolds in unexpected ways.

This is where a business continuity plan comes into play. To give your organization the best shot at success during a disaster, you need to put a current, tested plan in the hands of all personnel responsible for carrying out any part of that plan. The lack of a plan doesn’t just mean your organization will take longer than necessary to recover from an event or incident. You could go out of business for good.

What is business continuity?

Business continuity refers to maintaining business functions or quickly resuming them in the event of a major disruption, whether caused by a fire, flood or malicious attack by cybercriminals. A business continuity plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization must follow in the face of such disasters; it covers business processes, assets, human resources, business partners and more.

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Many people think a disaster recovery plan is the same as a business continuity plan, but a disaster recovery plan focuses mainly on restoring an IT infrastructure and operations after a crisis. It’s actually just one part of a complete business continuity plan, as a business continuity plan looks at the continuity of the entire organization.

Do you have a way to get HR, manufacturing and sales and support functionally up and running so the company can continue to make money right after a disaster? For example, if the building that houses your customer service representatives is flattened by a tornado, do you know how those reps can handle customer calls? Will they work from home temporarily, or from an alternate location? The BC plan addresses these types of concerns.

Note that a business impact analysis is another part of a business continuity plan. A business impact analysis identifies the impact of a sudden loss of business functions, usually quantified in a cost. Such analysis also helps you evaluate whether you should outsource non-core activities in your business continuity plan, which can come with its own risks. The business impact analysis essentially helps you look at your entire organization’s processes and determine which are most important.

Why business continuity planning matters

Whether you operate a small business or a large corporation, you strive to remain competitive. It’s vital to retain current customers while increasing your customer base — and there’s no better test of your capability to do so than right after an adverse event.

Because restoring IT is critical for most companies, numerous disaster recovery solutions are available. You can rely on IT to implement those solutions. But what about the rest of your business functions? Your company’s future depends on your people and processes. Being able to handle any incident effectively can have a positive effect on your company’s reputation and market value, and it can increase customer confidence.

“There’s an increase in consumer and regulatory expectations for security today,” says Lorraine O’Donnell, global head of business continuity at Experian. “Organizations must understand the processes within the business and the impact of the loss of these processes over time. These losses can be financial, legal, reputational and regulatory. The risk of having an organization’s “license to operate” withdrawn by a regulator or having conditions applied (retrospectively or prospectively) can adversely affect market value and consumer confidence. Build your recovery strategy around the allowable downtime for these processes.”

Anatomy of a business continuity plan

If your organization doesn’t have a business continuity plan in place, start by assessing your business processes, determining which areas are vulnerable, and the potential losses if those processes go down for a day, a few days or a week. This is essentially a business impact analysis.

Next, develop a plan. This involves six general steps:

• Identify the scope of the plan.
• Identify key business areas.
• Identify critical functions.
• Identify dependencies between various business areas and functions.
• Determine acceptable downtime for each critical function.
• Create a plan to maintain operations.

One common business continuity planning tool is a checklist that includes supplies and equipment, the location of data backups and backup sites, where the plan is available and who should have it, and contact information for emergency responders, key personnel and backup site providers.

Remember that the disaster recovery plan is part of the business continuity plan, so developing a disaster recovery plan if you don’t already have one should be part of your process. And if you do already have a disaster recovery plan, don’t assume that all requirements have been factored in, O’Donnell warns. You need to be sure that restoration time is defined and “make sure it aligns with business expectations.”

As you create your plan, consider interviewing key personnel in organizations who have gone through a disaster successfully. People generally like to share “war stories” and the steps and techniques (or clever ideas) that saved the day. Their insights could prove incredibly valuable in helping you to craft a solid plan.

The importance of testing your business continuity plan

Testing a plan is the only way to truly know it will work, says O’Donnell. “Obviously, a real incident is a true test and the best way to understand if something works. However, a controlled testing strategy is much more comfortable and provides an opportunity to identify gaps and improve.”

You have to rigorously test a plan to know if it’s complete and will fulfill its intended purpose. In fact, O’Donnell suggests you try to break it. “Don’t go for an easy scenario; always make it credible but challenging. This is the only way to improve. Also, ensure the objectives are measurable and stretching. Doing the minimum and ‘getting away with it’ just leads to a weak plan and no confidence in a real incident.”

Many organizations test a business continuity plan two to four times a year. The schedule depends on your type of organization, the amount of turnover of key personnel and the number of business processes and IT changes that have occurred since the last round of testing.

Common tests include tabletop exercises , structured walk-throughs and simulations. Test teams are usually composed of the recovery coordinator and members from each functional unit.

A tabletop exercise usually occurs in a conference room with the team poring over the plan, looking for gaps and ensuring that all business units are represented therein.

In a structured walk-through, each team member walks through his or her components of the plan in detail to identify weaknesses. Often, the team works through the test with a specific disaster in mind. Some organizations incorporate drills and disaster role-playing into the structured walk-through. Any weaknesses should be corrected and an updated plan distributed to all pertinent staff.

It’s also a good idea to conduct a full emergency evacuation drill at least once a year. This type of test lets you determine if you need to make special arrangements to evacuate staff members who have physical limitations.

Lastly, disaster simulation testing can be quite involved and should be performed annually. For this test, create an environment that simulates an actual disaster, with all the equipment, supplies and personnel (including business partners and vendors) who would be needed. The purpose of a simulation is to determine if you can carry out critical business functions during the event.

During each phase of business continuity plan testing, include some new employees on the test team. “Fresh eyes” might detect gaps or lapses of information that experienced team members could overlook.

Review and improve your business continuity plan

Much effort goes into creating and initially testing a business continuity plan. Once that job is complete, some organizations let the plan sit while other, more critical tasks get attention. When this happens, plans go stale and are of no use when needed.

Technology evolves, and people come and go, so the plan needs to be updated, too. Bring key personnel together at least annually to review the plan and discuss any areas that must be modified.

Prior to the review, solicit feedback from staff to incorporate into the plan. Ask all departments or business units to review the plan, including branch locations or other remote units. If you’ve had the misfortune of facing a disaster and had to put the plan into action, be sure to incorporate lessons learned. Many organizations conduct a review in tandem with a table-top exercise or structured walk-through.

How to ensure business continuity plan support, awareness

One way to ensure your plan is not successful is to adopt a casual attitude toward its importance. Every business continuity plan must be supported from the top down. That means senior management must be represented when creating and updating the plan; no one can delegate that responsibility to subordinates. In addition, the plan is likely to remain fresh and viable if senior management makes it a priority by dedicating time for adequate review and testing.

Management is also key to promoting user awareness. If employees don’t know about the plan, how will they be able to react appropriately when every minute counts? Although plan distribution and training can be conducted by business unit managers or HR staff, have someone from the top kick off training and punctuate its significance. It’ll have a greater impact on all employees, giving the plan more credibility and urgency.

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A Guide to Business Continuity Planning

Whoever can predict that a disaster is about to strike? No one. Rare is the occasion we get a heads up. Even with some lead time, multiple things can go wrong because every incident is unique, out of anyone’s control, and unfolds in unforeseen ways.

This is where Business Continuity Planning comes into play. It aims to give a company its best shot at successfully seeing through a disaster, and calls for an up-to-date and tested plan that a reliable personnel can capably create and carry out.

An absence of a plan will not only result in a long period of recovery from an unfortunate event, as the worst thing that could happen is your company going out of business permanently. That said, preparation is king.

What you'll find in this article

• 1 What is Business Continuity (BC)?
• 2 What is Business Continuity Planning?
• 3 Why is Business Continuity Planning Important?
• 4 Planning Steps
• 5 Get People Involved

What is Business Continuity (BC)?

Before determining a Business Continuity Plan, one has to define what Business Continuity means. Business Continuity (BC) generally refers to maintaining business functions and resuming them in the face of a major disruption such as fire, flood, epidemic illness, or a malicious attack on the Internet.

It delineates procedures and instructions a company must follow in the event of a disaster, and covers business processes, assets, human resources, business partners, etc.

However, Business Continuity is not the same as a Disaster Recovery Plan (DR), as the latter focuses on restoring IT infrastructure and operations post-crisis. While Business Continuity covers the entire continuity of an organization, the Disaster Recovery Plan is just part and parcel of it.

What is Business Continuity Planning?

There are critical services and products that must be delivered to ensure survival, avoid causing injury, and meet legal and other obligations of an organization. A good Business Continuity Planning is a proactive planning process that ensures critical services or products are delivered during a disruption.

Business Continuity Planning comprises:

• Plans, measures, and arrangements to guarantee a continuous delivery of critical services and products, which permits the organization to recover its facility, data, and assets.
• Identification of necessary resources to support business continuity including personnel, information, equipment, financial allocations, legal counsel, infrastructure protection, and accommodations.

Business Continuity Planning should enhance an organization’s image with stakeholders—employees, shareholders, and customers by showing a proactive attitude. It also includes overall improvement in the organizational efficiency by identifying the relationship of assets and human and financial resources to critical services and deliverables.  

Why is Business Continuity Planning Important?

Let’s face it. Every organization is at risk of potential disasters such as natural disasters (floods, fire, and earthquakes), sabotage, accidents , power and energy disruptions, communication and transportation failure, and cyber attacks. Coming up and sustaining a Business Continuity Plan secures information needed by an organization in dealing with said emergencies.

Whether you’re a small company or a huge enterprise, a Business Continuity Plan aims to retain your organization’s competence. It is crucial to keep current customers while increasing customer base—and there’s just no better test of your capability to do so than right after an adverse event.

You can rely on IT to restore or implement disaster solutions available, but the rest of your business functions depend on people and processes. Being able to handle any incident effectively can have a positive effect on your company’s reputation and market value, and can increase customer confidence.

Planning Steps

If your company doesn’t have a Business Continuity Plan in place, the best way to begin is by assessing your business processes—pointing out which areas are vulnerable and the potential losses if those areas cease to function and fail for a day, weeks, months, or a year.

It is recommended that planners complete a series of assessments that will help maintain a business’ critical areas. These steps include identifying which threats can have the most impact on your business, categorizing the most important areas of your business operation, assessing the impact that a disaster can have on your company and devising a plan to prevent damage, reduce damage potentials and restore operations.

After this, come up with a plan. While there are templates available online, you can also find an actual plan published by an organization similar to yours and modify it as needed.

Six general steps involved in creating a business continuity plan.

• Identify the scope of the plan.
• Identify key business areas.
• Identify critical functions.
• Identify dependencies between various business areas and functions.
• Determine acceptable downtime for each critical function.
• Create a plan to maintain operations.

A checklist is a common and effective Business Continuity Planning tool comprised of supplies and equipment, the location of data backups and backup sites, where the plan is available and who should have it, contact information for emergency responders, key personnel, and backup site providers.

Keep in mind that the Disaster Recovery Plan is part of the Business Continuity Plan. So, check with your IT department to ensure it has or is actively developing a DR plan.

Get People Involved

In creating your plan, include key personnel organizations who have gone through a disaster successfully by interviewing them. Their insights could prove incredibly valuable in helping you to craft a solid business continuity plan.

Staff involvement, for one thing, is an important part of ensuring the effectiveness of a Business Continuity Plan. In the face of a disaster, it is the staff that will serve as frontrunners of your business, ensuring that the company and its customers are protected.

Therefore, your small business staff should be knowledgeable about every area of the recovery plan. Trainings, meetings, orientations, and walkthroughs will provide your team the information needed to implement the plan—without hesitation, when and if a disaster hits.

Every Business Continuity Plan must be supported from top to bottom. Senior management must be greatly represented when creating and updating the plan—no one else can delegate responsibility to subordinates.

Dedicating time for adequate reviewing and testing will keep the plan effective and viable. Management is key to promoting awareness. Getting all the involvement is essential, too.

A personnel with a business continuity management certification can kick off training and emphasize a plan’s significance. This should have a greater impact on employees—granting a plan more urgency and legitimacy.

Elisabeth Nallos

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