Continuity Planning

Business continuity planning helps your business deal with unexpected events and situations.

Making a business continuity plan will help you minimise the impact of these events.

Here’s how it works

• How does a business continuity plan work
• Continuity planning for resilience
• Develop a business continuity plan
• Best practice in managing disaster risk
• Train your staff

What is a business continuity plan

Business continuity planning is crucial for any business as it helps them to prepare for unexpected events that can disrupt their operations. By developing a business continuity plan, you can minimize the impact of such events and ensure that your business continues to function. The plan should aim to identify and reduce risks, prepare for unforeseeable circumstances, and respond and recover in case of an incident or crisis. It is an ongoing process that helps your business to be more resilient and recover from unexpected events with minimal interruptions. Therefore, it is essential to train your staff on how to implement the plan effectively.u:

It’s important to always keep in mind the following three steps when it comes to risk management: first, identify, prevent or reduce risks where possible. Second, prepare for risks that are out of your control. And finally, be ready to respond and recover if an incident or crisis occurs. By following these steps, you can minimize potential damage and keep yourself and those around you safe.

“Continuity planning is crucial for building resilience in any organization”

Create a system to prevent, minimize, and recover from threats to business operations with business continuity planning.

Businesses face risks all the time. Some of these risks may include natural disasters such as floods, storms or cyclones, fire, power or IT outages, supply chain failures, staff shortages, and pandemics. The goal of business continuity planning is to resume operations as soon as possible. This type of planning helps businesses to be more resilient and continue with minimal disruptions.

Examples: the significance of continuity planning

All of your inventory in your warehouse has been destroyed by fire. Could you swiftly replace the stock to keep trading, or find another means to satisfy your consumers’ needs?

• easily replenish inventory with your present vendors?

• purchase extra stock from rival companies?

• If your own warehouse isn’t available, can you locate another one to store inventory?

• send directly to your consumers from the provider (dropshipping)?

For a period of six months, imagine that you were unable to manage your company or interact with employees and stakeholders.

• Could your employees manage your company?
• Do you have a strategy or document that employees and other stakeholders might access in a secure location (like the cloud)?
• Does your plan contain all the details required to run the company profitably while you are away?

Create a plan for business continuity.

The following components are found in most business continuity plans.

Extend everything

Section 1: Overview in 

Section 2:  Risk Management Plan 

Section 3: Analysis of the business impact

Section 4: Plan for responding to incidents

Section 5: Recuperation

Section 6: Practice, uphold, and assess

Business continuity plan template

The business continuity plan template will help you develop :

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

Download the business continuity planning template.

The PPRR model is a best practice for disaster risk management.

Managing catastrophe risk in your company can be done cyclically with the help of the prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery (PPRR) model. It serves as a helpful illustration for your business continuity strategy.

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 figure illustrates how the model starts with mitigation and prevention, progresses to preparedness, then response, and ends with recovery.

Utilize the PPRR model to help create your company continuity plan.

support the frequent execution of emergency exercises and rehearsals.

Determine any weaknesses and potential areas for development to make sure you’re ready.

Australian emergency management organizations frequently employ the PPRR model due to its ease of use, memorability, and application.

Examples of small business applications of the PPRR model

These illustrations aid in pointing out possible outcomes that your business continuity strategy should take into account.

Increase Every Kind of Prevention

Actions to reduce or eliminate hazards

Being Ready

Get your company ready to react to and move past an issue.

In response

How you handled containing and managing an incident

Recuperation

The procedures and schedule for completely resuming business activities

Educate your employees

• When creating and evaluating your business continuity strategy, involve important personnel. This will guarantee that your plan covers every aspect of your company and enable employees to handle situations with effectiveness. As part of the induction procedures, make sure you present your plan to newly hired employees.
• Staff members can help you test and review your plan by simulating the workplace.
• Workplace risk simulations can be helpful in detecting holes and issues with the plan, as well as how well-prepared you and your staff are. They can also show how quickly your workers can access the plan, implement incident checklists, and put recovery activities in place.

Exercise in simulation

There is an IT disruption at your company. Numerous systems are impacted, including as all of your phones and PCs.

• Is a copy of your business continuity plan available somewhere else (for example, on-site in hard copy or mobile-friendly on the cloud)?
• Does your strategy include a to-do list with contact information?
• Does your plan include guidelines for getting in touch with customers?
• How quickly did the employees handle the crisis and get the firm back up and running?

Following the simulation, a team debrief allows for analysis and adjustments depending on staff input.

Additionally, think about…

• Learn how to recognize and control business risk.
• Study up on risk management in IT.
• To find out how to handle hazards to your company, including natural catastrophes, visit the Small Business Disaster Hub.

You can design your own website. The easiest way to make sure your website can accomplish all of these goals is to hire a pro. You’ll have more time to run and grow your business.

Please download your brochure for your business plan below – Myinvestorchoice is ranked the number 1 Agency on Upwork for preparing business plans