Business Continuity Plans: How to Survive Acts of God, Hackers and Terrorists

Customers and employees come and go and fads roll in and out like the tides. However, businesses and industries try to make plans for these changes. The universe never gives us a sure thing when it comes to life or business. A wise Air Force captain once said “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” and sometimes things do go horribly wrong. Business Continuity Plans, or BCPs, are essential for businesses of all sizes. For example, due to poor planning 44% of businesses that experience a fire fail to reopen. Planning for the absolute worst may make you seem like a worrier, but when fire, flood, plague, power outage or 2012 happens, you’ll be glad you came up with a plan. When coming up with your BCP, follow these five phases:

1 | Analysis
Go through your entire business and document all processes and procedures. Take inventory of all equipment – desks, computers, filing cabinets, even employees. Get contact info for all employees, suppliers, and major clients. You’ll need to know every gritty little detail of your business for the next step. Also in this step, start thinking of possible worst case scenarios for each area. These could include a fire in the office, a disgruntled employee sabotaging equipment or stealing data, or a security hole that allows a hacker to steal information.

2 | Solution design
Using the information you gathered, start building solutions to potential threats. Threats can include anything that would disrupt your business – natural disasters, utility outages, cyber attacks, terrorism or even just construction on the street outside your business. Lumping these threats into groups is a great way to start. Focusing on data security helps mitigate threats of hackers as well as employee theft. Maybe this is also a good time to take paper records and start digitizing them, or removing paper and going completely digital. Have a system to back up your digital records. Perhaps outsourcing key processes would not only spread your risk thinner, but reduce costs. This is also the time to review and update your insurance. Since we took stock of all our assets, signing up for disaster insurance to replace losses is much easier. You’ve also gathered your employees’ contact information – put together a contact sheet and distribute it to all employees. If there is a total loss to the building you work in, have your employees plan to work remotely for a period of time while you look for a new building. Your BCP will be different from other businesses’, so tailor it to your needs and risk tolerance.

3 | Implementation
Now that you’ve got plans and procedures for your BCP, implement it! Coordinate with your staff and set the expectation that if things go wrong they should follow the plan.

4 | Testing
Once you have your BCP in place, make sure to test it out periodically – annually or biannually should do fine. Try to create a situation that is out of the ordinary but your business will be able to sustain the impact. Unplug a server and see if the workaround in the plan is successful. Run a fire drill and send all employees home for an afternoon to work there. After each test, review whether the plan kept you in business or if you would have had a much larger negative impact.

5 | Maintenance
Over time your BCP will change as your business changes. Make sure to update things like employee contact info or department changes and communicate those changes throughout your company. Verify that your insurance is up to date. Maybe you have decided to have all employees work at home and there isn’t an office anymore to insure. That needs to be reflected in your BCP. Update information security policies and ensure all security software is up to date. Any new processes also need to be documented.

Now that you have a solid process for ensuring your business will survive catastrophe, put everything together in a binder and make several copies. Give all critical personnel their own copy. Keep a few visible around the office and make them brightly colored. Keep one in your car. You’ll never know when or where you’ll be when you need to reference it. This binder will be your strength during the toughest times.