Which of the following is the best method to ensure that the business continuity plan BCP remains up to date?
Whether you are a business owner or work for a large enterprise, business continuity planning will help you respond faster when disruption strikes and minimize the negative impact on your business. Most businesses who are surviving the Covid-19 have had a good Business Continuity Plan in place, though many have improvised and learnt along the way. Not having a BCP puts you at the risk of either being unable to continue selling or in some cases unable to ship products during unplanned disruptions or pandemics. Your businesses ability to recover from these unplanned disruptions will be much slower and less effective if a BCP is not in place, eventually impacting both your revenue and your brand reputation. Deskera | Download Free Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Template Get a free, ready to use Business Continuity Plan (BCP) template Download Free Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Template A business continuity plan (BCP) is a process that documents and outlines how a business will continue
operating during an unplanned service disruption. Business continuity planning or BCP is the process involved in creating a system of prevention and recovery from possible threats to your business. It contains contingencies for business processes, human resources, assets and business partners, and every other aspect of the company that might be affected. The BCP ensures that the personnel and the assets are protected and can function quickly in the event of a disaster. The BCP plans
typically contain a checklist that includes equipment and supplies, data backups, and backup site locations. Plans can also identify plan administrators and have contact information for emergency responders, key personnel, and backup site providers. In addition, the BCP may provide detailed strategies on how business operations can be managed for both long-term and short-term outages. The critical component of a business continuity plan (BCP) is its disaster recovery plan containing the
strategies for handling IT disruptions to networks, personal computers, servers, and mobile devices. The BCP should cover how to re-establish office productivity and enterprise software to meet the essential business needs. Manual workarounds should be outlined in the BCP to continue until computer systems can be restored. There are a few primary aspects to a business continuity plan for the key applications and processes as mentioned below: Most businesses are open to a host of disasters that vary in various degrees, from minor issues to catastrophic issues, and BCPs are crucial. BCP is usually meant to
help a company to continue operating in the event of disruptions or threats. This could result in a loss of profit, and higher costs, leading to a drop in profitability. Businesses can not rely on insurance alone because it does not cover all the costs and the customers who move to the competition. Developing a comprehensive BCP is difficult because systems are distributed and integrated across a hybrid IT environment, creating potential vulnerabilities. Linking critical systems together
can help you manage higher expectations. However, it complicates business continuity planning – along with resiliency, disaster recovery, security and regulatory compliance. If one of the links in the chain breaks or is under attack, the impact can ripple throughout the entire business. An business can face revenue loss and erode customer trust if it fails to maintain the business resiliency, even while rapidly adapting and responding to opportunities and risks. Business Continuity
is an on-going cyclical process of risk assessment, management, and review to ensure that the business can continue if risks materialize. The effective implementation of business continuity has 6 stages: Deskera | Download Free Business
Continuity Plan (BCP) Template Get a free, ready to use Business Continuity Plan (BCP) template Download Free Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Template Download Template HereBCPWhat is the difference between Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Business Continuity Management (BCM)?BCP should be developed and implemented well in advance for a business to ensure its effectiveness. Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a structure for maintenance and management of the BCP. Most companies already may have countermeasures to avoid accidents and disasters. The application team's BCP should focus on what the people on that team need to do in order to continue supporting the application and bringing it back online. What are the Types of Continuity Plans?1. Business Continuity Plan (BC Plan) - A Business Continuity Plan or BC Plan comprises clearly defined and documented procedures and information for use when a disaster occurs. 2. Occupant Emergency Planning (OEP) - Occupant Emergency Planning or OEP is a process that provides the response procedures for the occupants of a facility in a situation posing a potential threat to personnel's health and safety environment or property. 3. Incident Response Plan (IR Plan) - Incident Response Plan is the documentation of the pre-determined set of instructions or procedures or to detect, respond to, and limit consequences of a cyber attack against an organization's IT systems. 4. Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) - A Continuity of Operations Plan or COOP is a determined set of procedures or instructions that describe how an organization's essential functions will be sustained for up to 30 days as a result of a disaster event before returning to normal operations. 5. Disaster Recovery Plan (DR Plan) - A disaster recovery plan (DR Plan) is a clearly defined and documented plan describing how an organization deals with potential IT disasters. 6. Continuity of Support Plan (CS Plan) - Continuity of Support Plan or CS Plan is the documentation of a determined set of procedures or instructions that describe how to sustain major applications and general support systems in the event of significant disruption. 7. Business Resumption Plan (BRP) - Business Resumption Plan or BR plan is the documentation of the determined set of instructions or procedures that describe how business processes will be recovered, resume, and restored after a significant disruption has occurred. Need for Continuity PlanWhat are the Business Continuity Strategies?The output of the business continuity strategy would generally include a system for mitigation, crisis response, and recovery. (a) Mitigation Strategy The mitigation strategy comes from the risk assessment performed in the initial "Risk Analysis and Analysis phase". Therefore, risks that remain high in spite the presence of the mitigating controls should be reviewed. The reasons to review are to check if:
Some of these threats must be identified, and more attempts must be made to lower their risk. In addition, they must be implemented to prevent any potential disruption. A mechanism should be in place to detect and sound the alarm should a threat materialize. These detection mechanisms could take the form of monitoring tools that records and captures abnormal changes in the environment or process. While it is better to prevent disasters from happening, it is impossible to say with a hundred percent certainty that one will never occur. Therefore, in the unfortunate event that a disaster causes the business operations to be disrupted, a good strategy is required to ensure effective and timely recovery and resumption. Business Continuity Strategies(b) Recovery StrategyThe recovery strategy should focus on re-establishing or re-gaining what has been lost in the disaster stage
An organization that does not choose not to own spare resources could lease the resource. Some organizations may choose to procure resources only when a disaster occurs. In developing the recovery strategy, you can consider getting back the resources needed to continue critical business operations. It would be best if you, kept in mind that the recovery is within the prescribed RTOs for these vital operations. If a resource can not be recovered in this time, interim measures are often called Temporary Operating Procedures (TOP) are carried out. (c) Crisis Response StrategyUsually an organization does not have and incident management or response plan. Crisis response strategy should also include a response component that are the prioritized activities that the organization would undertake in a disaster. These activities include emergency responses, like situational assessment, evacuation, and modes of communication. How do you Write a Good Business Continuity Plan?A successful business continuity plan has the following elements: 1. Define the team structure Create a core team with personnel from throughout the organization, including information technology, executive leaders, facilities and real estate, communications, physical security, human resources, finance, and other service departments. Develop a defined decision-making hierarchy. So that people do not wonder who has the responsibility or authority to make a given decision. Create a support teams devoted to related functions such as communications, business readiness, and emergency response 2. Establish a plan Identify potential disruptions to your business process which can affect any of your organization's locations, such as epidemics, power outages, fires, etc. Try to base your plan on worst-case scenarios to keep the number of scenarios manageable. Always prioritize the essential operations and who will perform them. Determine how employees will work-from-home in the event of prolonged outages like the Covid-19 pandemic. Remember to update your plan annually to reflect changes in the criticality and dependency of applications, risk management, business priorities, business locations, operations and other considerations 3. Test your business continuity plan Always conduct full emergency simulations annually. This includes crisis communications, safety drills, and workplace recovery processes. Remember to measure your test results and strive for continuous improvements, whether they are application availability goals or personnel safety assurances. Business Continuity Team4. Create a crisis communications strategy Establish emergency notification procedures. This should incorporate both push and pull systems to communicate quickly. Identify all the stakeholders for crisis emergency communications, including employees, clients, vendors, contractors, media and executive management. Have a scripted communication that can be easily updated and ready to transmit immediately for such situations. 5. Educate people on safety procedures Always educate and train your workforce so that they are aware of the processes they should follow in the event of an emergency. Always consult with your local and federal agencies in emergency response training and other guidance for your program. Remember to conduct employee drills to help personnel become familiar with procedures, such as finding emergency exits We have you covered with a ready to use BCP Template so you can have your business continuity plan ready in minutes. Deskera | Download Free Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Template Get a free, ready to use Business Continuity Plan (BCP) template Download Free Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Template What is the Difference between a BCP and a Disaster Recovery Plan?Let us have a closer look at business continuity vs. disaster recovery plan:
How can Deskera help with Business Continuity Planning?Deskera helps with business continuity by making critical business processes systems independent. Deskera is an all-in-one online, cloud-based business software that helps businesses remove their dependency on centralized systems. Move accounting, finance, sales, purchase, inventory management, leads management, sales operations, after sales support, payroll, leaves and expense management completely online with Deskera All In One Business Software. With Deskera, you can run your business anywhere, any time. You can work in office, or remotely, from your laptop on a browser or on the award winning Deskera mobile app, to keep things running at all times. Deskera All-In-One DashboardDeskera gives you the overall view of how your business in running at the moment from anywhere. Deskera can help you view your inventory and view financial reports whenever you need them. Deskera helps you automate your business with its fast CRM system, manage your employees with attendance and payroll, and finally manage your financial reports, inventory, shipping and finally banking integrations to keep track of your payments and revenue coming in. Deskera - Cloud SoftwareKey Takeaways
Download the free BCP template here. Which of the following is the primary objective of the business continuity plan BCP process?Business continuity planning (BCP) refers to the mechanism of developing different measures so as to protect and recover a business from prospective threats. The main objective of BCP is to make sure that the staff as well as assets of the firm remain safe, and the business can cope up effectively during disasters.
Which is the effective strategy for BCP planning?Identify key business areas. Identify critical functions. Identify dependencies between various business areas and functions. Determine acceptable downtime for each critical function.
What should a business continuity planning BCP include?It will typically include the following sections:. executive summary, introduction, distribution list, objectives and glossary.. risk management plan with business impact analysis.. incident response plan, with plan activation, incident response team, communications and contact list.. recovery plan.. What are the three main phases of a business continuity plan BCP )?The Five Phases of Developing and Maintaining a Business Continuity Plan. Phase 1: Initiation. ... . Phase 2: Business Impact Analysis (BIA) ... . Phase 3: Develop Recovery Strategies. ... . Phase 4: Implementation. ... . Phase 5: Test and Monitor.. |