All About BCP
Why Invest in a BCP Plan?
Getting Started: Scope and Resources
How do you begin building a BCP? Scope and resource planning are key: WHAT planning do you need to do and HOW are you going to do it?
Scope
Determining WHAT you are going to do revolves around the planning parts that you need to complete. As a reminder planning includes:
- Risk Assessment
- Business Impact Analysis
- Business Recovery Plan
- Crisis Management Plan
- IT Disaster Recovery Plan
A Risk Assessment can be scoped by facility, technology, and/or operational area. In other words you can look at the threats that imperil each of these areas.
The Business Impact Analysis should be done by groups of operational areas. This is generally business departments or lines of business. Always conduct your BIA the way your organization operates—by the groups of activities (i.e. business functions) it performs. Since the Business Recovery Plan is based upon the BIA, it should encompass those activities identified as critical business functions from the BIA.
The IT Disaster Recovery Plan is delivered from both the BIA and Business Recovery Plan. It should include those resources that support the operation of critical business activities, both during recovery and normal operations.
Crisis Management Planning is done both organization-wide for overall coordination of the response and recovery effort and by other control area, like region and facility.
Find out more in our white paper:BCP 102: Business Continuity Program Management
Resources - People and Tools
Business Continuity Planning is a profession with professional designations and where experience in building plans and more importantly, in recovering from disasters truly matters. The BCP is a continuous process where plans change as the organization’s operations, IT, and people change. As with any endeavor that requires expertise, individuals to build and run your BC Program can be internally trained or hired as consultants or permanent resources.
While a myriad of tools exist, not all tools are created equal. Software tools must be easy to use by everyone that will be involved in your BCP. Most tools simply synthesize data and generate large plans—a true promotion of bad practices. Ensure your tool takes away the cumbersome planning tasks through automation and provides analytics that provide insight into risk. Most importantly, ensure that people can actually use their plans during disasters—not your typical pdf or paper document—online and interactive plans supplemented by real-time information on the disaster and what everyone else is doing to recover.
Find out more in our white paper:BCP 102: Business Continuity Program Management
Statement of Impact
How much does your organization stand to lose with even one hour of downtime?
Statement of Impact