How to Write a Business Continuity Plan
A business is more than an entity that makes money. It represents a means of livelihood for its employees and their families, it may provide its clients with crucial goods and services they rely on and it may represent a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice for the owner. A business is worth protecting, then, and the first step in protecting its value is creating a plan to ensure that the business will survive any external threats as an ongoing concern.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Conduct a risk assessment. Make a list of all possible business threats. These can include severe weather events, floods, fires, terrorist attacks, employee sabotage and acts of war. You should also include the possibility of the death or disablement of an owner or key employee.
-
2
Address data vulnerabilities. You should identify any data that are stored on-site and list the possible ways this data could be destroyed. You may wish to mitigate the threat by backing up the data off-site, creating duplicate servers or both.
-
-
3
Conduct an inventory of needed property. This is necessary in case you need to do an emergency relocation of your business. You will need the number and types of desks, telephones, computers and other IT equipment, and other key pieces of equipment and inventory.
-
4
List key insurance providers and policy numbers. Include contact and claims information for all forms of key coverage, including life, fire, flood, weather and crop insurance and other types of protection.
-
5
Print out all continuity plan documents and put them in a binder. You may not be able to access electronic copies in the event of an emergency. The binder is a useful backup.
-
1
