Creating a business continuity plan
To make a business continuity management (BCM) plan you need to consider the following questions:
- what are your organisation’s key products and services?
- what are the critical activities and resources required to deliver these?
- what are the risks to these critical activities?
- how will you maintain these critical activities in the event of an incident, for example, loss of access to premises, loss of utilities etc)?
There are 6 elements in the business continuity management cycle:
- BCM programme management - assigning responsibilities to staff, establishing and implementing BCM within the organisation and establishing an ongoing management process.
- Understanding the organisation - undertaking business impact analysis and risk assessments to recognise where hazards and vulnerabilities exist.
- Determining BCM strategy - identifying the actions that can be taken to ensure the maintenance of critical activities for your organisation.
- Developing and implementing BCM Response - ensuring the management of an incident and continuity and recovery of critical activities that support essential products and services.
- Exercising, maintaining and reviewing BCM arrangements - keeping your organisation’s BCM arrangements valid through regular exercise and review.
- Embedding BCM in the organisation’s structure - a successful BCM programme relies on embedding it into the culture of your organisation.
Your BCM plan should be supplemented by general good practice, such as focusing on staff welfare, building maintenance and physical and cyber security.
Further information
Business Continuity Management Toolkit - to guide you through the steps you will need to take to implement business continuity management.
Further information on business continuity management
The Business Continuity Institute is a not-for-profit organisation registered in the United Kingdom.
London Resilience Partnership coordinates institutions and communities to prevent, handle, recover and learn from disruption, and adapt to change.
Cabinet Office - Preparing for Emergencies guidance helps people, businesses and communities to identify and prepare for the hazards and threats that may disrupt their lives.