Get to know why a well-planned and strategized business continuity management plan can help organizations from risks and threats such as natural disasters, currency disruptions, cyber-attacks and other potentially disastrous circumstances.

1. A Proactive
Approach to
Business Continuity
STAFF BOOM | 2020

2. There is a rising need to address the growing
complexities and threats that can undermine a
business' operations. A well planned and
strategized business continuity management plan
can help ensure that organizations
are well prepared when a disruption occurs.

3. Business continuity and disaster recovery
are usually seen as insurance policies
against threats of natural disasters,
currency disruptions, cyber-attacks
and other potentially disastrous
circumstances.

4. BUSINESS
CONTINUITY
VS.
DISASTER
RECOVERY
To be more exact, business continuity
consists of an action plan.
The plan makes sure that regular business
will continue even during a disaster.
On the other hand, disaster recovery is a
subset of a business continuity plan. It
involves restoring vital support systems.
These systems consist mostly of
communications, hardware and other vital IT
assets. Disaster recovery aims to minimize
business downtime and focuses on getting
the technical operations to normalcy in the
shortest possible time.
01
02
Both of these events are often
confused with one another,but they
are quite different. Business
continuity and disaster recovery are
two separate strategies and each
plays a significant role in making
sure businesses continue to operate
during a disaster.

5. KEY ELEMENTS OF A BUSINESS
CONTINUITY PLAN

6. ASSEMBLING THE TEAM
The business continuity team implements and executes the
business continuity plan. The team will determine what
potential events to plan for, while recognizing the need to
be prepared for unexpected events.
As an example, a business continuity management team, may
include the following roles:

7. Executive
Sponsor
Business
Continuity
Manager (BCM)
01 02 03
04
BCM Steering
Committee
Department
Specific Team
Leads
04
Key Suppliers
and Vendors

8. These individuals will prepare standards for the
plan, train additional team members and identify processes to
ensure smooth plan execution. As a rule of thumb, the business
continuity team should have at least one representative from each
department.
Depending on the size of your organization, it is
a good practice to add personnel on the team and
distribute responsibilities accordingly.

9. CONDUCTING A
BUSINESS PLAN
A business impact analysis (BIA)
supports the entire business continuity
process. It is used to identify,
quantify and qualify the impact of a
loss, interruption or disruption. A BIA
helps organizations identify mission-
critical activities and the time frame
within which they must be recovered.
Depending on the size of your
organization, it is a good practice to
add personnel on the team and distribute
responsibilities accordingly.

10. MITIGATING RISKS
After the BIA, the organization should mitigate risks that
threaten both health and safety of employees, operations,
company assets and environment by reducing the risk to an
acceptable level.
Strategies may include the following:
• Security and fire protection systems
• Minimizing or eliminating single points of dependency
• vendor readiness and qualification of secondary supplies
• IT backup strategies and direct response sites
• Distribution of critical functions and resources between
multiple sites
• Preventive maintenance and testing programs
• Cross training of personnel

11. ESTABLISH
BUSINESS
CONTINUITY
STRATEGIES
Establish strategies for:
• Outsourcing
• Alternate temporary work
locations or arrangements (work
from home, shared workspaces)
• Cross training
• Mobile offices
• Alternate procedures for IT
infrastructures (VPN network)
• Offsite data and storage systems
• Data security
• Communications

12. IMPLEMENTATION AND
TRAINING
Conduct training for everyone in the organization
with key roles and assignments in the business
continuity plan. Rehearse and deploy scenarios to
demonstrate business continuity.

13. EFFECTIVE TESTING
With any type of plan, regular
testing is. An outdated plan will
render itself useless in times that
they are needed. By testing the
plans, potential flaws are
discovered and fixed before they
cause any significant disruption.
Update the plans as necessary.

14. A proactive approach involves the entire
business. Regardless of the size. All areas
of the business need to understand the
importance of business continuity, the roles
they play, their involvement in the risk
assessment, budgeting, planning processes
and implementation.

15. Consider
Outsourcing
to Protect Your
Business

16. There are no warnings before a
disaster strikes. Even if businesses have
already established lead times to
prepare, there are still many unexpected
items that come up, as disasters are
unpredictable.

17. Business continuity is a protocol that is planned,
strategized, developed and outlined ahead of time. A
business’ failure to plan will cost them revenue and
can possibly stain a company’s reputation.
It is important for a business to have appropriate
measures in place to make sure that business
operations will continue in the event of a disruption
or a disaster. Outsourcing provides an option for
business owners to transfer key processes in their
operation to a third party. In the event a disaster
strikes, your outsourcing team can continue to
operate and manage some of the key operations for
your company, avoiding a total work stoppage.

18. FINAL QUESTION

19. How well do you think your business can
deal with disasters that interrupt your
operation?

20. Is it worth considering outsourcing some of
your operation to have a safeguard in the
event disaster strikes?

21. Contact us today
and let us discuss
ways in which
Outsourcing can
benefit your
business!

22. info@staffboom.com
(833) 733-2666
www.staffboom.com