Every organization should have business continuity plans among their many professional business plans. Business continuity plans are designed to help a company operate in the event of a disaster, large or small.
Business Continuity Plans
At its simplest, a business continuity plan should document contact information for key personnel, both inside your business as well as important suppliers and customers, critical equipment and a meeting location should your facilities be damaged or destroyed. In addition, your plan should include who will take responsibility for a given action. Business continuity plans can and should be customized to fit the needs of individual organizations.
A business continuity plan designates a primary person to act as a spokesperson for your organization in case of a disaster as well as a secondary person, in case the primary individual cannot be found, and their contact information. It should also include an evacuation or reassembling location and a person who is responsible for managing that location. The person who is responsible for shutting down your facility and what should be down during that shut down should also be documented. Both of these people should also have back-ups.
Computers are the backbone of many organizations, not only for record keeping purposes, but for communication purposes. You should have instructions in place on how to handle a viral attack or a system breakdown. In addition, someone should be appointed to take care of records backup for critical company information such as payroll and accounting.
Business contingency plans should also list the different divisions of your organization and the manager of each division with contact information. In addition, each division needs to have action plans for recovery.
If possible, coordinate your continuity plan with neighboring businesses so that you can all assist each other in a time of crisis.
After formulating the plan, the plan should be tested, reevaluated and revised on a periodic basis. In addition, the plan should be updated as key personnel change, both within your organization and as customers and suppliers change. Copies of your business continuity plans should be distributed to key company personnel after each revision.
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