We are currently experiencing intermittent issues with public access, we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a process that helps manage risks to the smooth running of an organisation or delivery of a service, ensuring continuity of critical functions in the event of a disruption, and effective recovery afterwards.
Any incident, natural or man-made, large or small can cause significant disruption to your business. Planning ahead will help you to respond quickly and enable you to return to business in the quickest possible time.
Good BCM helps organisations identify their key products and services and the threats to these and can:
- Reduce the chance of disruption
- Minimise the impact of a disruption
- Reduce financial loss
- Prevent loss of business
- Enhance reputation
- Improve staff awareness
Could Your Business Survive?
The impact a major emergency could have on the District’s commercial sector is of great importance.
The Five Steps to Effective Business Continuity Management may help you to consider this:
- Understand Your Business
- What parts of your business are critical to its survival?
- What priorities would you allocate to restoring these critical functions if they fail?
- Risk Assessment
- What risks does your business face?
- Consider these risks - what controls can you put in place to reduce the likelihood of failure and / or the impact if risks are realised?
- Consider the Resource Needs of Your Critical Functions
- People
- Premises
- Equipment
- Information
- Communications
- External Suppliers / Contractors.
- Draw Up a Plan of Attack
- Make sure the document is easy to understand
- List the critical functions, what resources they require and priorities for restoring
- List alternative contractors or suppliers
- List the location of back-ups
- Decide how you will communicate with staff.
- Train and Exercise Your Plan With Staff
- So everyone knows their own roles and responsibilities
- So your plan can be enacted effectively and efficiently.
Keeping your fingers crossed is not an effective Business Continuity Strategy!