Analyse and Assess the Risks to Your Business
In order to develop a Business Continuity Plan you need to have a through understanding of your business. This involves knowing the critical functions of your business, the effect of those functions being disrupted and the priority of those functions. This process is known as a Business Impact Analysis.
If your organisation operates over multiple sites, then each site will need a separate continuity plan of its own, based on the same principles.
Where is your business vulnerable?
Following the analysis of your business processes formulate a list of where your business is vulnerable.
Examples of critical functions are:
- Staff wages
- Call centre
- IT Department
- Sales
- Manufacture
- Distribution
- Goods in
Effect on Service
You should consider the importance of the function on the survival of your business (percentage of income or work load, how critical the function is to other functions, etc) and how quickly each function must be re-established.
For each of the time spans, identify what the effect of the loss of the Critical Function would be. For example, disruption to the Goods-In function could have the following affect:
First 24 hours
- Lack of stock causing orders not completed on time
- Storage space for part processed goods causing concern
24-48 hours
- Cut manufacturing hours due to lack of stock
- Company reputation damaged
Up to 1 week
- Financial implications of missed deadlines
- Need to outsource work to maintain market share
Up to 2 weeks
- Loss of customers to competitors
- Temporary or permanent reduction in staff numbers
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