As busy entrepreneurs of startups, growing enterprises, or established companies, we tend to get so busy focusing on the day-to-day tasks we need to do that we don’t stop to focus on longer-term and overarching issues so much. For example, how many of us actually make the succession plans we mean to or plan out multiple years of goals in advance?
In particular, though, it’s common for business owners and managers to forget to consider the potential risks and developments that can affect the continuity of their ventures. Numerous disruptions can arise over the years, including, as we’ve learned, health problems such as global pandemics. We all need to try to fit in some time to learn about and implement continuity management plans so our organizations will be around for the long term and much better able to weather storms along the way.
What Exactly is the Concept of Business Continuity Planning?
Start by making sure you’re clear about what the term “business continuity planning” refers to. This phrase is about how a business or other organization plans to keep delivering its goods or services at current levels (or as close to current as possible) if a disruptive event occurs.
While we all hope that nothing ever goes wrong, the reality is that disasters arise even when we do a considerable amount of preparation and act proactively to manage risk. As such, we must mitigate negative issues through helpful planning. A comprehensive business continuity management strategy involves putting together action plans to reduce the chances that you won’t be able to deliver your firm’s offerings if something untoward arises.
This plan will also involve the development of alternative operational strategies for those processes or activities in your organization that will cause extreme reputational and financial damage if interrupted. Many people think that business continuity is something only entrepreneurs running risky ventures or firms in risky sectors or locations should worry about. However, every venture is at risk of things going wrong, and even solopreneurs and owners of very small businesses should be undertaking continuity planning to be safe.
Determine Your Firm’s Main Vulnerabilities
The next step is to work out where your company is most at risk for issues that could affect continuity. Start with an analysis of the critical functions and processes involved in day-to-day operations. Consider what must be done to keep your organization going and providing products or services to customers every week, no matter what challenges may arise.
List the most crucial operational factors, with an emphasis on p-word elements. There’s your firm’s processes, people, and providers, plus your premises and brand profile. Also, consider performance elements and preparation. Once you’ve thought about these different areas, it will be easier to see what to work on to minimize threats slowly but surely over the coming weeks and months.
The vulnerabilities you need to prepare for will differ in many ways from those other business owners must work on since each venture has varying risk factors. However, some common areas that many entrepreneurs identify include staff getting sick or having accidents, natural disasters, terror attacks, political instability, recessions, and changes to laws or other regulations.
Plus, not accessing supplies when you need them can cause significant issues. You need a sustainable supply chain and backup solutions for times when vendors go bust, run out of stock, or have logistics problems, among other things. It’s worth having other suppliers you can use to get goods from if your main partners can’t deliver what you need when you need it.
Also, these days cybersecurity is a significant factor since we all work online so much. Think about weak spots in your systems and processes that hackers could attack and what data will be at risk if networks crash, you get locked out of devices and accounts, servers go down, or other challenges arise. Spend the time necessary to conduct a risk assessment for all the large and small areas of your business operations, and you’ll be much better equipped to keep your venture running no matter what curveballs come your way.
Document and Share Plans
For effective business continuity, you need all the key stakeholders in your organization to be on board with and understand what’s at risk and how to mitigate the fallout from problems. Document all of your plans clearly and precisely in language that isn’t open to interpretation.
Get other people, such as business partners, investors, board members, top staff members, and the like, on board with what’s in these documents and discuss the information to ensure everyone understands each item. People should know their roles and responsibilities in the process of carrying out continuity steps if the worst happens. It’s wise to store and manage your plans in the cloud so those who need to access the document(s) can do so at any time from any part of the world.
Train Your Staff Effectively
Another vital part of continuity planning is training your team effectively. If something untoward crops up, people need to feel confident that they know what to do and the correct order of steps to take. In many situations, quick thinking and doing is critical, so you don’t want people to hesitate or make errors out of stress.
It helps to engage your staff members in running mock scenarios. Test the effectiveness of continuity solutions by seeing how well each plan element works when tried out and if everyone can appropriately complete the actions you’ve laid out for them. You will likely need to organize additional training for some or all of your personnel to ensure they can handle all tasks.
After running these mock scenarios, sit down and analyze what went right and where things didn’t flow so well. Discuss issues with your workers to get their input and update your plans accordingly to make them more valuable in the future. Also, make further updates over the months and years ahead as your operations and needs change, as will invariably happen.
Business continuity may not be the most thrilling part of running a venture that you get excited about handling, but it is vital. Invest in this area today so your firm can survive and thrive over the long term.
