Business Continuity Management (BCM)

Business Continuity Management is about identifying those parts of your business that you cannot afford to lose.  Such as stock, premises, information, staff - and planning how to maintain these if an incident occurs.

Any incident whether it is large or small, natural accident or deliberate can cause major disruption to your business however, by planning in advance you will be able to resume your day to day business sooner.  Delays could mean you lose valuable business to your competitors or your customers may lose faith in you and take their custom elsewhere.

BCM is about safeguarding your business.

Consider the following in relation to your business:

Leicestershire County Council is committed to supporting partner agencies and key suppliers in developing their business continuity programmes.  Our BC Manager will, therefore, offer free consultation, where practicable, to organisations that require assistance in putting together an effective business continuity programme.

A variety of templates and other guide documents are available free of charge from Leicestershire County Council.

Please contact the Business Continuity Manager at Leicestershire County Council to discuss any queries or requests that you may have with regard to Business Continuity Management.  Email mholliday@leics.gov.uk and telephone 0116 305 6107.

Ask yourself the following questions:

Consider the risk involved with each of key functions or processes you identified in Question 1

Consider what the impact would be on your business:

By identifying risks you can also identify areas where processes etc may need to be addressed to mitigate the risk.

Only when you have identified the risks and taken action to ensure that they are mitigated can you begin to develop a Business Continuity Strategy and ultimately your Business Continuity Plan.

Identify a suitable strategy (method) as to how you intend to manage a recovery following a disruption in your organisation.

Use the 7 P Strategy as a guideline.

Create a working document that details your strategy in such a manner that it will be suitable Guide / Reference material for the management team to use during the recovery.

Detailed response would be required for the following:

Your Business Continuity Plan may become a lengthy document, if you provide unnecessary details.

Every manager in your organisation should receive a copy of the Business Continuity Plan which they can keep in their briefcase or at home.  For this reason it may become necessary to produce a summary (one double page) of your BC Plan that can be folded and stored in wallets and purses of the respective managers.  This will ensure that the essential information about recovering from a disruption is easily available to key staff.

Communication is key to the success of any BC programme.

Ensure that you and all your staff are aware how they will be communicated with and what is expected of them during a disruption.

Small organisations may want to adopt the Call Cascade method for notifying staff whereas larger organisations may want to make use of SMS/text messaging as a means of notification.

External communications are paramount to maintaining your brand and good reputation.  Prepare a communications plan in advance which provides a template and detailed processes to communicate with suppliers, customers, financial institutions, press etc.

By including BC into various areas of your business you can be assured that you will be providing your staff with the required information when a disruption occurs

When you have completed the plan you will need to exercise it in order to determine that it is a practical strategy and that it meets the right recovery requirements.

Get a professional to walk through your plan with your organisation.  They will be able to highlight good practice and offer advice on areas where your plan may be lacking.  Once you know you have an effective plan prepare to conduct a table top scenario exercise with your identified key recovery staff.  The Leicestershire County Council will be able to assist you in preparing and monitoring an exercise.

Business Continuity is now auditable and should be included in your companies internal audit processes to as to be prepared for any external audit that may occur.

The Business Continuity Programme should be reviewed annually or when there has been significant change or disruption to your business.

The Leicestershire County Council gives free advice and consultation to organisations that require assistance with their Business Continuity Arrangements.

Please contact the Business Continuity Manager at Leicestershire County Council to discuss any queries or requests that you may have with regard to Business Continuity Management.  Email mholliday@leics.gov.uk and telephone 0116 305 6107.