How do you ensure business continuity and resilience in the face of disruptions and crises?
Business continuity and resilience are essential for any organization that wants to survive and thrive in the face of disruptions and crises. Whether it is a natural disaster, a cyberattack, a pandemic, or a market shift, you need to have a plan and a process to maintain your core functions and recover quickly. In this article, you will learn how to ensure business continuity and resilience by following these six steps:
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Abraham Udu, CC, ACA, CCI, DCP, CFCP, CMSA, ESGP, GRCP, CRCMPEconomist| Chartered Accountant| Audit & Compliance| Risk Management| Cybersecurity & Digital Risks| Capital Markets|…
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Sam JonesEstablished Finance Leader | High Growth Specialist | ACA, ICAEW
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Shashank PrasadVice President - Business & Strategy | Ex - Founder | Designer | Thinker | Startups
The first step is to identify and evaluate the potential threats and vulnerabilities that could affect your business operations, assets, and reputation. You can use a risk matrix or a SWOT analysis to rank the likelihood and impact of each scenario. This will help you prioritize your actions and allocate your resources accordingly.
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Disruptions are inevitable, but business continuity and resilience planning make you a superhero ready to fight back. Here's the key: - Plan for the worst: Identify critical functions, potential crises, and create response plans with backups. Regularly rehearse these plans. - Be adaptable: Don't rely on single sources, empower your team, and foster open communication during disruptions. Learn from each crisis to become more resilient. By planning, diversifying, and fostering a prepared team, your business can bounce back from any punch life throws.
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To ensure business continuity and resilience, conduct risk assessments, develop comprehensive continuity plans, and implement crisis management strategies. Regularly test and update plans, train employees, and maintain clear communication. Use advanced analytics, cloud-based solutions, and robust cybersecurity measures. Adopt AI and sustainable practices to enhance resilience, enabling your business to quickly recover and adapt to disruptions and crises.
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Assessing your business risks is essential as an ongoing protective tool. It shouldn't be a one-off exercise but rather one that is maintained on an ongoing basis. A periodic zero-based review can also help give focused attention. Beyond what the staff knows about the business from their experience, many other methods help identify the risks being faced, such as risk matrices, scenario analyses, and business impact analyses. You should also lean on your department heads to flesh out which specific risks they face. These should be gathered and assessed based on both their impact and likelihood, as this will help determine the immediacy and type of response to each risk.
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You shouldn't try to go without this part of the plan. You will have to make tough choices during any crisis. Such decisions can only be achieved by a strong and confident person who, with a calm mind, can recognize the problems and ways out of the situation.
The second step is to establish your business continuity objectives, which are the specific outcomes and targets that you want to achieve in the event of a disruption or crisis. These objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, you may want to restore your customer service within 24 hours, or resume your production within a week.
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The objectives that come out of a risk assessment should align with the organisation's mission and values while addressing critical areas of vulnerability. Each business will have areas considered key to that business or business type, as well as the universal risks that apply to all businesses. Specifics may include reducing downtime in a telecoms business, whereas universal risks may relate to losing key staff.
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Establishing business continuity objectives is crucial for ensuring that an organization can continue to operate during and after a disruption or crisis. By setting SMART business continuity objectives and adopting best practices, organizations can enhance their resilience, effectively manage risks, and ensure continuity of operations during and after disruptions. Addressing challenges and staying abreast of future trends will further strengthen their ability to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing environment.
The third step is to design and document your business continuity strategies, which are the plans and procedures that you will implement to achieve your objectives. Your strategies should cover four key areas: prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. For each area, you should define the roles and responsibilities, the communication channels, the resources and equipment, and the performance indicators.
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Designing and documenting business continuity strategies involve prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Prevention focuses on reducing risks, preparedness ensures readiness through training and drills, response involves managing and containing disruptions, and recovery aims to restore operations. Key elements include defining roles and responsibilities, establishing communication channels, providing necessary resources, and setting performance indicators. This comprehensive approach enhances organizational resilience and ensures effective management of disruptions to achieve business continuity objectives.
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With the risks assessed and objectives defined, the next step is to develop comprehensive strategies to ensure business continuity and resilience. Strategies should include preventative measures to reduce incidence risk, response plans for when preventative measures fail, and recovery procedures tailored to the specific risks faced. The types of strategies available will depend heavily on each business and situation, so collaborating with stakeholders will be key. This will include employees, suppliers, and regulatory agencies, amongst others.
The fourth step is to test and validate your business continuity plans, which are the detailed instructions that you will follow to execute your strategies. You should conduct regular exercises and simulations to check the feasibility and effectiveness of your plans, as well as to identify and address any gaps or weaknesses. You should also update your plans based on the feedback and lessons learned from the tests.
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Regular exercises such as tabletop simulations and full-scale drills will help ensure that your plans on paper will stand up to the test when needed most - when crises occur. Simulating these situations and thoroughly testing whether responses will be effective will validate the plans and familiarise employees with their roles. Post-exercise debriefs will add extra value and help refine the plans, improving the original plans by updating them and closing gaps.
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Regularly test and validate business continuity plans through exercises and simulations to ensure their feasibility and effectiveness. Conduct various types of exercises like tabletop, walkthrough, functional, and full-scale simulations. Identify and address gaps or weaknesses, and update the plans based on feedback and lessons learned. Establish a regular testing schedule to maintain readiness and continuously improve the plans. This approach ensures robust, practical plans that effectively mitigate disruptions and facilitate quick recovery.
The fifth step is to train and educate your staff, who are the key stakeholders and actors in your business continuity process. You should provide them with the necessary knowledge and skills to perform their duties and responsibilities, as well as to cope with the stress and uncertainty of a disruption or crisis. You should also create a culture of awareness and engagement among your staff, and encourage them to report any issues or suggestions.
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Train and educate your staff to ensure effective business continuity by providing role-specific training, crisis management skills, and technical proficiency. Teach stress management techniques and offer psychological support. Create a culture of awareness and engagement through regular communication and involvement in drills. Encourage open communication for reporting issues and suggestions. Recognize contributions to business continuity. This prepares employees to handle disruptions and fosters a resilient, proactive organizational culture.
The sixth and final step is to monitor and evaluate your external and internal environment, which are the factors and conditions that could affect your business continuity and resilience. You should use various tools and methods, such as surveys, audits, reports, or dashboards, to collect and analyze data and information on your performance, risks, opportunities, and best practices. You should also review and revise your plans and strategies based on the changes and trends in your environment.
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Business resilience is an organization’s ability to absorb stress, recover critical functionality, and thrive in altered circumstances.Adaptability, learning from Crises,Preparedness, and Diversification are the key aspects of that.
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