While many companies may have a business continuity plans already in place, when was the last time it was updated?
Many organizations go through the pain of putting a plan together. They may bring in a consultant and spend countless hours filling out questionnaires and risk matrices and sit in meetings that seem to go on for hours. Each department pours over the flowcharts and explanations detailing their processes, checking off their controls or researching alternate site facilities for recovery. In the end it may all look impressive but if the business continuity plan hasn’t been updated to include any new business processes or equipment – or even supply vendor contact info, then it might as well be framed for display.
The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) realizes that this is one of the challenges associated with business continuity management (BCM) and as part of Business Continuity Awareness Week, June 21-27, strongly encourages business owners to take the time to update their current plans.
The most effective business continuity plans are those which are maintained, updated and tested on an ongoing and regular basis. To assist in this updating process, IBHS has developed a few questions that can help get you started:
1. Do you have one person in charge of BCM? If not, who is responsible for maintaining the plan?
2. How does your organization incorporate new processes, systems (software and hardware) and people
into the business continuity plan?
3. Does your organization perform self-assessments or audits of the plan?
4. If so, who performs the self-assessment or audit?
5. How often does your organization perform the self-assessment or audit?
6. Has your organization ever conducted a BCM test or exercise?
7. If so, what kind of test or exercise was conducted?
8. When did the test or exercise take place?
9. What was the outcome of the test or exercise?
10. Have you analyzed your supply chain dependency?
IBHS offers Open for Business®, a collection of business protection planning and educational tools that were designed for small and medium businesses to reduce the potential for loss in the event of a disaster, and to help reopen quickly afterwards. The variety of easy-to-use tools include tips to identify hazards, worksheets to help develop a property protection and recovery plan, and education to organize your business to become more resilient. Click here for additional information regarding Open for Business®.
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