Landing on your feet following everything from a system failure to a security breach - is more often a result of good planning than good luck. Business continuity planning is a step-by-step process used by companies of all sizes to recognize threats to business operations - like theft, fire, or data loss - in order to react quickly to restore operations following a disruption. A business continuity plan is your design for keeping your business up and running and encompasses your buildings, staff, data, communications and software.

Here are five practical steps and additional resources for creating a business continuity plan.

1. Choose someone to build your plan. The first step is authorizing a team or leader to initiate and design your business continuity plan. This person will be responsible for understanding technical infrastructure and operations. Because the planner will conduct research throughout your organization, he or she should be granted access to the people and information necessary to gain a comprehensive view of the business.
2. Conduct a business impact analysis. The business impact analysis is a holistic study in which potential disruptions are identified and their impact measured in terms of time and cost.

   The business continuity planner examines the company's critical products and services, determines levels of production required to maintain the business, and establishes the maximum period of time that product or service delivery can be down.

   During the business impact analysis, the planner asks questions such as:

   1. What critical equipment is required and used in normal business operations?
   2. Are there single points of potential failure in the company? Where can back-up systems be created? (See Managed Storage and Managed Security)
   3. What are the company's critical documents and where are they kept?
   4. What are the company's key outsourced relationships and dependencies?
   5. In the event the company has to relocate to a temporary location, what equipment is needed to communicate with employees, vendors and customers?
   6. Is the current network structured to allow employees to connect remotely and continue operations?

   The focus of the analysis is not on specific events that may occur, but rather on the impact a disruptive event might have on equipment, facilities, data, and availability of personnel, supplies, vendors or service providers.

   For more business impact analysis resources, view links to business continuity industry sites at: http://bit.ly/bzfqMR and http://bit.ly/9Obfwv

3. Identify essential business functions, how they will be protected, recovered or duplicated following a disruption, and the sequence in which operations will resume. Research conducted by your business continuity planner will reveal the order and importance of essential business functions.

   During this phase, your planner can recommend strategies to guard business assets before a disruption - such as:

   • Employee cross training. Training more than one employee in the same business operation increases the likelihood that someone will be available to do the job following a disruption.
   • Diversifying suppliers to your business to increase the likelihood of an uninterrupted supply chain in the event that one of your suppliers is impacted.
   • Secure data storage at a remote location to ensure that a network disruption will not damage critical data.
   • Teleworking to allow employees working from home or other remote locations to maintain access to each other, to management and to enterprise applications via phone and Internet.
4. Train your employees on your business continuity strategy. Upon completion, publish your continuation strategies and train employees in how to implement them using simulations.

   For example, outline a scenario - such as a warehouse flood that damages merchandise or a system failure in which your network becomes inoperable - then practice how you and your employees will respond. Consider conducting simulations during the year to update and improve on your strategy.

5. Store the plan offsite and plan to update it annually. Store a copy of the continuity plan in a safe place off site. It should include:
   • The names, addresses, and phone numbers of crisis management staff, general staff members, clients, and vendors
   • The location of offsite data backup and storage media
   • Copies of contracts and other critical documents

Remember: continuity planning is never really "finished." Audit the continuity plan annually to assess accuracy, relevance and ensure effectiveness under changing conditions. Your plan should reflect new equipment, new software applications and new operations as well as changes in the operating environment and lessons learned during rehearsals. As new employees come aboard, they will need training to understand your business continuity plan too.

After you have created a Business Continuity Plan, visit these resources to learn how you can make ongoing improvements: http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0759.html

Call your TWCBC Representative for information on how we can help you build a business continuity solution.