Business Continuity
Guidance for Businesses and Voluntary Organisations
Emergencies and disasters can cause extensive disruption to
business activities yet recognising the advantages of undertaking
simple business continuity measures can minimise these disruptions
and potential losses.
What is Business Continuity Management (BCM)?
BCM is a process that identifies potential impacts that threaten
an organisation, and also provides a framework for building
resilience and the capability of an effective response in the event
of a disruption.
What do you mean by Disruption
Disruptions vary, and could come from a number of sources
- The electricity supply fails
- Water, gas or communication networks (landlines and mobiles)
were disrupted or interrupted?
- Adverse or severe weather conditions made it difficult for the
business to continue to trade?
- Terrorism
- Fire, explosion or water including flooding, damaged parts or
all of your premises
- Internal disruptions, eg loss of key staff, IT networks,
hardware systems failure
- Or from multiple other causes
But I’m insured,
aren’t I?
The likelihood is, you will recover 30% to 50% of the total cost
of an insured interruption, and you still have to keep the business
going while your losses are assessed.
So what do I do?
You need to put in place a process of managing the risks that
may disrupt your business. The Business Continuity Institute (BCI)
has developed a five-stage process, which has become widely
accepted.
This process is outlined as follows:-
- Understand your business
- Assess your risks and produce your BCM Strategies
- Develop and Implement your plan
- Developing a Business Continuity Management culture
- Exercising, maintenance and auditing of your plan
The full Good Practice Guidelines are available to download free
of charge from http://www.thebci.org/
More information and further guidance