Organisations nowadays are more than ever in need of comprehensive and robust business continuity services and plans to take effective and timely action in case of a disaster be it man-made or natural. As trading and supply chain went global, modern-day strong business expect crisis management to come in play within micro-seconds; not in hours or minutes thereby minimising the ripple impact.
As businesses go digital, even the tiniest IT flaw or failure can cripple the supply chain and workplace operations causing significant loss within hours and excess time to recover from the event. Plans to reduce IT failures are also affected by the sophisticated infrastructure and poor planning. Newer technologies and renewed infrastructure pose new challenges with constant additions and upgrades to applications and systems.
Most of the businesses rely on cloud based platforms for their corporate needs which helps minimising cost while maximise efficiency since the platform is made for speed and convenience in the first place. It offers just the option to scale up and down as per business flexibility so as to streamline workplace operations. However today, effective business continuity services and plans should cater dynamic information across extended organisations continuously.
Organisations need overcoming the traditional fragmented approach to business continuity and formulate an effective business continuity strategy adhering to the given agenda;
Strong Business continuity at the highest level
With the sponsorship of senior management, strong business continuity plan would surely occupy its rightful position and topping corporate requisites. This is very important with a limited budget, resource and training to be assigned while senior management is responsible to set the tone by insisting on a strong crisis planning and regular reviews being part of the routine practice.
Review, update & test
The business continuity plan is an actual document which isn’t limited to just the blueprint only to be dumped later. Exercising the plan or regular basis would ensure organisations keeping pace with ever changing environment and understanding needs of critical infrastructure protection and preserve workplace operation during both physical and virtual attacks. Companies should learn from their own experience; evaluate and revise the plans accordingly.
A survey report concluded that approximately 33-percent organisations that opted for strong business continuity services said theirs is out of date with 60-percent never implemented the plan in full while the remaining simply reviewed the guidelines.
Include partners, suppliers & intermediaries
Companies pay less attention to partners, suppliers and third-parties that actually play a significant role in business continuity and resilience. Another survey reported low to moderate confidence in the technology and solution provided by these intermediaries while 88-percent also deter harnessing the tools due to insignificant risk management.
Disaster recovery and business continuity should be a part of third-party discussions with roles and responsibilities highlighted in the service level agreement. Plans need to be streamlined so that identification of each process, tracking who did what, where and when willmake execution convenient.
Prioritise ongoing corporate operations
The plan should be clear, consistent and demonstrate a business understands the priority level of it systems and that risk reduction plans are well in place to restore core operations as quickly as can be. Take the case of Delta crisis of which the outage was extensive enough to paralyse business critical operations.
The nature of problem also play a crucial role so as to execute with the type of business continuity services and disaster recovery plan. Industrial action, natural disasters, IT crashes and flaws, cybercrime, economic or political unrest which hinder the supply and trade so on insists on prioritisation of these plans.
Communicate the plan clearly
Business continuity services and plan must be absolutely clear and concise that stakeholders can conveniently communicate it on the right channels in times of crisis. Stakeholders include employees all levels of organisational hierarchy such as partners, suppliers and customers.
Conclusion
Service disruption; even for a microsecond nowadays can be damaging to business not just financially but affecting the brand and reputational image of the corporation which is why there has to be a strong business continuity plan.
