Were you working on creating a contingency plan for your business? That’s great! Here are four things you need to consider when preparing your new business continuity plan.
1. Audit of your business continuity plan
Having a business continuity plan alone is not enough. It would be best if you audited it at regular intervals to ensure it is up-to-date and relevant. Business continuity plans often aren’t used for years and can become obsolete or irrelevant when an actual emergency occurs.
2. Creating a team for business continuity
Constitute a team for your business continuity project. Decide who will take ownership of implementing the business continuity in the event of an emergency. Break down the business continuity plan into smaller elements and decide who is responsible for each of them. Also, remember to designate a backup for each person on the team.
3. Mock drills and dry runs
After your business continuity plan is ready, you need to check if it works. A dry run will tell you if it is effective and point out loose ends that you can fix before the actual emergency.
4. Don’t forget a debrief
In case you do end up using your business continuity plan, make sure you do a debrief. It will help you determine the effectiveness of your business continuity plan. The brief should focus on identifying the losses you incurred from the disaster, the time taken to implement the business continuity plan, the key positives of implementing your business continuity plan, and suggestions, if any, for improvement.
Irrespective of the size of your business, business continuity planning is indispensable. Bigger companies often have their staff (IT and non-IT) for business continuity planning. However, SMBs can strain their resources trying to build their business continuity planning team. An SMBs would find it beneficial to team up with an outsourced IT company to focus on their business continuity plan. Wahaya IT would be the perfect fit. Wahaya IT has experience in disaster recovery planning. With Wahaya IT, your SMB does not have to cut corners now and regret it later.
Contact us today to get started on your business continuity plan.
