Managing and Planning for business disruption

This article was written for the Adelaide Hills Council’s ‘Your Business’ Newsletter.

If you are like me, working in your Adelaide Hills business is very rewarding and enjoyable. As with most things in life, things can go wrong, and a disaster can negatively affect your business. Developing a business continuity plan can greatly assist your business to be operating quickly during and after a crisis or disaster. A business continuity plan (BCP) is a document that sets out how your business will sustain its operations during and after a significant disruption.

Here in the Adelaide Hills, the risk of bush fires is often present and the Stirling Village Mall fire, that occurred in October 2023, took us all by surprise. Events like this have an effect on your business, your team and your customers.

Image courtesy of CFS

 The goal of a BCP is to identify the risks to your business operations and outline the recovery steps that assist you in resuming business as normal, as quickly as possible.

 How to develop your Business Continuity Plan

Businesses are broadly made up of three main components –

·         People (including staff and customers)

·         Products and Services, and

·         Systems and Processes 

Considering these business components when developing your plan can ensure you capture all aspects of your business. Below are the five key steps you can follow when developing your plan.

 1.    Identify and assess the risks to your business

This can include environmental risks that can damage your premises, the loss of internet access or other key utilities.

 2.    Identify the essential elements to your business

Essential elements can include staff with key (technical) skills, business critical tools, and business systems such as personnel files, software, data and customer records.

 3.    Mitigate risks and reduce impact

Now the business risks have been identified, you can develop strategies to eliminate or reduce those risks. It is not always possible to eliminate a risk, therefore a method to reduce the risk is next best.

 4.    How will you respond during and after the event?

Adding a section in your plan about ‘who will do what’ and ‘how it will be communicated’ during and after a disaster is essential to the success of your plan.

 5.    Keeping your business continuity plan active

Your completed plan should be treated as a live document that is reviewed and updated often. A good trigger for this is when new staff commence in your business or when new software or systems are introduced.

Conclusion

I can’t promise that your completed plan will help you sleep better at night… but I can promise that it will help your business to quickly resume operating during and after a disaster – and that just makes good business sense!

When will you start your BCP plan?

Rex Alexander

Executive Coach

Clear Coaching – Adelaide Hills, SA