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MI5

“I am often asked what single piece of advice I can recommend that would be most helpful to the business community. My answer is a simple, but effective, business continuity plan that is regularly reviewed and tested”

“There is a serious and sustained threat of terrorist attacks against UK interests at home and abroad, including against the business community.”

- Eliza Manningham-Buller, Director General, in a          speech to the CBI Annual Conference, 8 Nov. 2004

 

Business Continuity Management - the key to continuity

Business Continuity Management is about being prepared to cope with an event that makes the normal running of your business impossible. It is important to identify your recovery priorities and timescales, and think about what, if anything, is a tolerable period of disruption.

Resources required to achieve disaster recovery, both physical and human, need to be considered, and plans made for sourcing them - especially IT hardware.

Critical activities in the business need to be identified, the risks to them and impacts of their disruption need to be investigated across five key areas:

• Site
• People
• Technology
• Information and Data
• Key Suppliers

This then allows the production of a comprehensive Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis, quantifying the exposures of the business operations. Risks can be considered using the ‘4T’ model – Treat / Tolerate / Terminate / Transfer.

A Business Continuity Plan can then be formulated. This should include Incident Management procedures, and short, medium and long term Business Continuity actions.  Responsibilities are allocated to teams (the Gold / Silver / Bronze structure used by the emergency services is useful here), over a defined timeline.

Business Continuity then needs to be embedded in an organisation through training and awareness, with the plan regularly updated and tested to keep the arrangements fresh in the minds of those involved.