Business Continuity for any SME is important. Business Continuity could be required for many reasons. Last year we had teams sent home due to a global pandemic. YOu could have short term issues where the electricity goes down. You could have long term issues and major disasters – eg fire, flood etc.
With this article we wanted to help you avert disaster by giving you 5 easy to implement tips so that you don’t make an expensive mistake or, worse, lose your business. Here’s what you need to be doing to make life as easy as possible for you if something does go wrong.
Step 1 – Think about what could go wrong
They say failing to plan is planning to fail. The first step to ensure effective business continuity is to ensure that you know what you could face. Make a list of every possible disaster, no matter how unlikely. Fire damage, water damage, electricity goes off, IT security breach and global pandemic are some of the obvious ones. Is there something else that could impact your business? You need to think about all possibilities as each threat may have a different response.
Step 2 – Make sure everyone knows who they need to call if something happens
Who throughout the organisation do you need to inform? Which service providers do you need to call to enact your plan? Your telecommunications provider? Your IT team? Others? Make sure all relevant contact numbers are stored conveniently and make sure they are easily accessible by anyone who might have to enact this plan. I mean, make sure they all have these numbers stored in their smartphone. Your most important call is probably to your telecommunications provider to ensure that your customers can keep in contact with you if you don’t have access to your office phone system.
Step 3 – Make sure you have an effective, offsite, backup solution for all your important data
What will you do if you don’t have access to your office computer and you can’t get into the office? What happens if the office burns down? What’s your Plan B? This is why it’s important to back up your critical data regularly and do it offsite. If in doubt, look at multiple backup options. More importantly make sure you test your backups regularly to ensure they are working
Step 4 – Be prepared for temporary worksites, or ensure your teams have remote working capability
You need to have a plan for what happens if your teams cannot come into the office. Are they going to get together at a second site, or are your team going to work remotely? Are your team equipped to work remotely and can this be rolled out at a moment’s notice?
Step 5 – Make sure your plan actually works
You’ve likely practiced your fire drill at the office regularly. Have you practiced your disaster recovery drill? During a quiet moment roll it out and see how it goes. See how smoothly it runs. It doesn’t have to be 100% smooth but it does have to work and everyone needs to know their role. If something goes wrong in the practice run, make sure you fix the bottlenecks so everything does work if you actually need to enact your plan for real.
Hopefully you never see another moment like last year’s pandemic but it has shown the importance of being prepared. If you’d like to discuss your own business continuity plan please get in touch today so we can discuss your needs.