Fundamentals of Risk Management

Business continuity
211
TAbLE 
18.1
Key activities in business continuity planning
1 Assess company activities to identify critical staff, materials, procedures and 
equipment required to keep the business operating.
2 Identify suppliers, shippers, resources and other businesses that are contacted 
on a daily basis.
3 Plan what to do if any important buildings, plant or store were to become 
inaccessible.
4 Identify necessary actions to ensure continuity of critical business functions, 
especially payroll.
5 Decide who should participate in compiling and subsequently testing the 
emergency plans.
6 Define crisis management procedures and individual responsibilities for disaster 
recovery activities.
7 Co-ordinate with others, including neighbours, utility suppliers, suppliers, 
shippers and key customers.
8 Review the emergency plans annually and when the business changes and/or 
new members of staff are recruited.
The BCP must be practical and easily understood by staff and others who are
involved in the execution of the plan. Overall, the BCP must be effective in that it 
will recognize the urgency of certain business components or functions and identify 
responsibilities for ensuring timely resumption of normal work.
In order to guarantee that the BCP will be effective, it needs to be tested,
maintained and practised. All members of staff need to be familiar with the intended 
operation of the plan and training will need to be provided. The lessons learnt during 
testing and practice of the business continuity plan should be incorporated into the 
plan so that it becomes more effective. The need for rehearsals is emphasized in 
Figure 18.2 and Table 18.1.
Testing of business continuity plans is an essential component of ensuring that 
they will be appropriate and effective. However, testing of plans can be time- 
consuming and, in some circumstances, disruptive and costly. Even the simple example 
of a fire evacuation drill from a building illustrates that the testing of procedures is 
inevitably going to disrupt normal routine operations.