Basics Of The Business Continuity Policy | Business Finance Solutions

The purpose of a business continuity policy (BCP) is to ensure normal operations during and after incidents that could potentially destroy or disrupt the firm?s activities. This could be anything from natural disasters to supply chain breakdowns or the loss of key employees. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR or BC/DR) is a well defined process.

This is a vital element of risk management for every company, but the scope of the process can vary depending on the firm?s size and what it does. For instance, manufacturers should allow every division to come up with its own BCP. But an office or a leader has to be appointed to oversee the process and ensure compliance for the whole company.

IT divisions need to put in more effort because they need both a BCP and a company-wide DRP aka a disaster recovery plan. This will spell out in detail how they plan to stay online and bounce back after a disaster. The plan has to state clearly that the company has the capability to switch to backup servers in the event of a crash.

In addition, they might have to maintain the ability to quickly install and configure email, web and other servers the company uses. By logical inference, this requires the IT department to state that they have backups available to restore any data that might be lost. The physical loss of cabling and networking equipment require a capability to lay out a whole new LAN. The head of the division has to come up with solutions to all such eventualities to keep the network operational.

This process and its implementation are too important to be trusted in the hands of one person or department. A BCP is usually drafted as per regional or industry standards. The plan has to be approved at multiple levels and verified for compliance. The approval process can be done internally within the division, but the subsequent compliance check will be performed by the office or person assigned the BCP leader role.

It?s not always easy to know where to start with BC/DR or how to do it the right way. There are free standard BCP templates available on the web that can provide a fair idea of what components the policy should include. An expert or a consultant can be hired to create or customize continuity policies for the company.

Some people get mixed up between a business continuity policy and disaster recovery plan. These are two different things, but with overlapping functions and purposes. The slash in BC/DR signifies the separation and the need for each division to come up with its own BCP. At the same time, it also indicates that divisions need to collaborate and come up with a set of policies and plans that protect the entire company.

Sebastian Cork focuses on information evaluations, You can check out his newest website at Business Continuity Planning, where he offers Business Continuity Policy ideas

Source: http://immfinancial.com/2012/basics-of-the-business-continuity-policy/

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