Why I Always Have a Business Continuity Plan

The main issue with any business continuity plan is it is not something a business thinks about when everything goes smoothly.

Developing a business continuity plan takes a lot of effort and cooperation, though it is not as tough as it seems. What are the steps of creating such a procedure, and why does my team always have one?

What is a business continuity plan?

It is a plan containing all the information a business needs to keep functioning during a crisis or an unforeseen event. It should contain step-by-step instructions on sustaining and maintaining processes related to data, team, and office safety as well as any other information that would ensure a business can keep on operating.

Developing a continuity plan

• Step 1: determining the greatest risks and assessing the impact each of them can have on a team’s productivity

• Step 2: establishing core crisis communication and hierarchy rules

• Step 3: making sure a business has enough resources on any given day, so if a crisis hits, it will be able to withstand it

• Step 4: ensuring total data security

• Step 5: testing the plan and tweaking it as needed

  
  

It all looks like a lot of work that, in case nothing happens, may go to waste. But, from my experience, I have learned that the process and the feeling of safety it brings is well worth the effort.

Reason #1

A business continuity plan allows businesses to keep on providing their services to their clients and customers. It is exactly what allowed SupportYourApp to keep on providing services without any interruptions when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. My team and I had developed an almost step-by-step instruction of how we were going to protect our data, our team, and our offices. As soon as disaster hit, we enabled everything we had planned and were able to keep on delivering our services non-stop.

Reason #2

It will help a team stay the course no matter what. Keep in mind — it is impossible to develop a plan that will tell a team EXACTLY what they should do in a time of crisis, but it is possible to develop instructions that will be able to nudge them in the right direction.

This can be achieved by:

• Establishing and describing a clear algorithm of actions

• Explaining the meaning behind every step

• Making the plan available and accessible for every team member

  
  

These simple but crucial steps will ensure everyone keeps doing what they have to and no processes will be overlooked.

Reason #3

A continuity plan can also help a company and a brand take as little hits as possible. During disasters such as hurricanes, floods, hacks, wars, and attacks on a business data infrastructure, companies tend to make decisions that may not be the most appropriate or popular with their workers and with the public.

One of the best (or, for that matter, the worst) examples of this would be Sony. In 2014, the company suffered through ‘The worst hack of the century’ when hackers gained access to Sony’s media distribution hub. The incident was brushed off and was never treated as anything serious.

Several months later, hackers attacked the company once again. This time, they shut down half of Sony’s infrastructure and gained access to confidential information such as team members’ social security and telephone numbers, the size of their salaries, their emails, and so on. They also erased everything on the company’s 3,262 computers and 837 servers. Some members of the Sony team had to quit because of the hack. Had Sony had a working business continuity plan and reacted to the first breach, these reputational hits would have been avoided and lots of people would have been able to keep their jobs.

This example shows the importance of not only an efficient business continuity plan, but also of an adequate situation assessment and management reaction.

Reason #4

Having a well-prepared business continuity plan gives the entire team peace of mind. For example, we at SupportYourApp don’t have to constantly think about the steps we will take in unforeseen circumstances because the entire algorithm of the actions we need to take is written down and updated as needed. This allows us to go on about our business even when the world turns uncertain.

I always have a business continuity plan because I know for sure — it is better to have and never have to use it than to find myself in the eye of the storm without having a clue what to do and how to protect my team and my business.