Business Process Series: Business Continuity Plan

A Business Continuity Plan, sometimes referred to as or combined with a Disaster Recovery Plan, is the process you will use to restore critical business functions for a determined period of time. In other words, how are you going to stay in business in the event of a disaster? It seems silly to plan for a disaster, especially if you aren't located near hurricanes or earthquakes. But even man-made ‘disasters’ can interrupt your business operations…..fires, chemical spills, power blackouts….. Spend five minutes searching the and you can find piles of information about plans, as well as templates, to get you started. Don’t be discouraged after reading articles about risk assessments and planning committees….there is an entire industry around disaster recovery and, like any other process, it can get very detailed. This is a short article to get you started thinking about the kinds of questions you must document the answers for…. https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Business-Continuity-Plan. While doing research for our DCP, we noticed that many plans didn't address the customer. Keep your customer contact information current, save a copy of it off-site and include your key accounts in your binder. Communication is important across the board, so don’t limit your status updates to just your employees and vendors, let your customers know too!