Every business sometimes experiences disruptions. From natural disasters to cyber-attacks, a number of unforeseen events can halt operations and cause financial or reputational damage. This is where a crisis management plan (often referred to as a business continuity and disaster recovery plan) plays a crucial role, by ensuring your company can operate even during an emergency.
Why Business Continuity Planning Matters
A business continuity and disaster recovery plan is a strategic framework designed to prepare your business for emergencies. While a thorough crisis management plan will include both, they actually play slightly different roles. Business continuity exists to ensure continued operations, while disaster recovery focuses on restoring systems and data after the event.
In Australia, business continuity planning is especially important due to the unique risks your company can face. Bushfires, for example, can continue to present a threat for weeks or months at a time. If you are not able to continue operations under these circumstances, hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue could be lost. Australia’s unique geographical challenges can also exacerbate supply chain issues, making backup plans essential.
Creating a Business Continuity Plan
Step 1: Assess Business Risks
For effective business continuity management, you must identify which risks are the most significant. For example, if you handle sensitive data you are at a higher risk of experiencing cyber-attacks. Extreme weather events are another big consideration, as they can potentially destroy physical assets and halt operations entirely.
Step 2: Prioritise Critical Business Functions
Conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to determine which functions are essential to your operations. By integrating these insights into your business continuity framework, you will be better positioned to allocate resources effectively.
Step 3: Develop A Business Continuity Plan
Once critical functions have been identified, craft a business continuity framework to support them. Solutions might include enabling remote work if necessary, securing alternate suppliers, or investing in backup power sources to effectively handle outages.
Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan
Step 1: Outline Disaster Scenarios
As with business continuity management, step one is making a list of potential disasters and assessing their impact. If you do not understand the threats your company faces, you won’t be able to create an effective plan to recover from them.
Step 2: Develop an IT Disaster Recovery Plan
Your IT disaster recovery plan should outline clear steps to restore systems and data as fast as possible. This includes defining recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO), assigning roles to team members, developing a plan for communication with key stakeholders, and implementing a data backup and recovery plan. You should also align your plan with regulations such as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, to avoid legal penalties and reputational harm.
Step 3: Test and Update the Plan Regularly
Test your plan regularly to ensure that it works during a real crisis. Use simulated scenarios to test your team’s readiness, and make adjustments as your business changes. Certain standards such as ISO 22301 can provide a reliable framework to help refine your approach.
Best Practices for Integrating Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Holistic Approach: Business continuity and disaster recovery are two parts of a whole. Design them to seamlessly work together during a crisis. For example, your IT disaster recovery plan should prioritise the critical business functions identified in your continuity plan.
Regular Training: Teach employees about both plans, regardless of which response team they belong to. Ensure they understand their responsibilities during an emergency, as well as how all the pieces of each plan fit together.
Tools and Resources to Support Your Planning
Checklists and Frameworks: Frameworks like the Essential 8 and the National Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) can help you prevent and prepare for emergencies.
Software Solutions: Tools such as Archer Business Resiliency can help support business continuity. Cloud services can make data backup and recovery easier.
Minimise Disruptions With Strong Continuity Planning
A thorough business continuity and disaster recovery plan can mean the difference between a minor disruption and prolonged downtime. It can require significant effort to implement, but investing the necessary time and resources now can prevent much larger problems in the future. Properly assessing the risks that threaten your business, and making a plan to recover, will help you protect your operations, employees, and customers.
iCare Cyber can help you stay productive during a crisis, by working with you to develop a plan for every situation your business might face. We know that you won’t always see the disaster coming, so early preparation is essential. Learn more about our business continuity services now.