Business continuity - are you ready?

In times of operational success, it can be easy to overlook the need to plan for the next downturn. Businesses that don’t take time to predict and plan for this lose profit and clients. Reduction in workload due to economic changes will lead to resourcing challenges. The loss of sensitive information due to an IT or systems failure can lead to lengthy lawsuits, not to mention a serious case of losing face. The list of potential disasters for which a business should be prepared for is extensive.

There are three main elements to business continuity:

1. Resilience

Business infrastructure and critical functions are engineered or designed to be unaffected by most disruptions. This can take the form of redundancy and additional capacity.

2. Recovery

Have systems in place to ensure critical and less critical business functions can return to normal operation soon after an incident with minimal or no loss of function.

3. Contingency

This is the last-resort option. Contingency plans are to be employed only if Resilience and Recovery planning has either failed or not adequately protect the business from the disaster.

Make the time to analyse your business operations and liabilities to see where your critical weaknesses lie. If you are unsure where to begin, speak with a Rob Filonzi (M4D). Plan for the worst; hopefully it will just be an academic exercise, but if not, if trouble does come calling, you’ll be prepared.