Steps You Can Take to Implement A Business Continuity Plan

09 Aug Steps You Can Take to Implement A Business Continuity Plan

Do you have a clear understanding of the threats that can cause a disruption to your business? What happens when cyber threats cause a disruption? Natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding occur at a moment’s notice and have a significant effect on production. Political disruption can also be a factor when legislation or environmental compliance affect pricing, shipping routes, and suppliers.

The 2017 statistics on disaster recovery practices, largely from a report from Datto, show:

• 45%of unplanned downtime was the result of hardware failure.
• 35% of unplanned downtime was caused by power outages.
• 30% of businesses had no disaster recovery plan in place at all.

• 90% of businesses without a disaster recovery strategy will fail in the aftermath of a disaster.
• 33% of businesses were unprepared for an attack, even though they had a recovery plan.
• 12% of companies were unable to recover the data they had lost.
• The process of recovering from a disaster takes up 25% of staff time.
• 96%of companies with a trusted backup and disaster recovery plan were able to survive ransomware attacks.
• Ransomware attacks are expected to rise by 11.5%this year.
• 97% of IT service providers forecast that the number of cyber-attacks will grow drastically over the next two years, according to Dynamic Business Technologies.
• 48% of IT providers believe that phishing emails are to blame for ransomware attacks, and 36% believe they are a result of a lack of employee cybersecurity training.

Prevention may cost more, but it is less than a data breach that has widespread repercussions for executives, vendors, and consumers.

What Is A Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan anticipates likely threats to business operations and sets in place a framework of responses that protects a company’s key interests including brand identity, reputation, intellectual property, financial stakeholders, employees, and investments.

Business Continuity Plans adopt policies and procedures from Crisis Intervention, Reputation Management, and Disaster Response and Recovery. The idea is to set in motion alternative measures to relocate organizational, operational, and technological functions so that a company avoids financial losses. The value of such a plan is that it defines processes for the what-ifs.

What Should I Include in A Business Continuity Plan?

You should first include any threats that you know your business is susceptible including cyber, malware, downtime, network outages, power failures, and natural disasters. Any of these issues can cost tens of thousands to millions depending on the type and length of the disruption.

Next, you need to define how each threat will disrupt your business functions and daily operations. You then need to calculate the risks by weighing them against four issues.

• Cost of Reputation Management for Business Partners and Consumers
• How Will the Disruption Affect Future Business Potential?
• How Much Potential Revenue Will Be Lost?
• Has Your Business Met the Legal Threshold for Compliance and Regulations?

Connect Partners understands how critical a Business Continuity Plan is for operations and IT functions. We will customize your plan of action based on your current business model, assets, available resources, and futuristic needs. Contact us for more information at 410-774-1000.