Business Continuity Checklist
A successful business continuity plan is prepared based on the understanding of the impact of a disaster situation on a business. A business continuity checklist includes certain steps, which we have summarized for you below in point form.
Use this step by step guide for preparing your comprehensive preparedness plan. When it comes to disaster recovery strategies, each company will have varying strategies based on geographical locations, the organization’s structure, system, environments, and the severity of the disaster in question.
1. Assemble the Planning Team:
Implementing a BCP plan certainly requires a dedicated team. Teams should be built with hierarchy in mind, with specific roles and recovery tasks assigned to staff members who are accountable for each.
2. Drawing Up the BCP Plan:
Mapping out a strategy is one of the most important components of a business continuity plan. The objectives of the plan should be clearly understood with goals set accordingly. A company should use this opportunity to identify the key processes and the people who will keep it running.
To draw up the plan, companies need to make a list of all the disruptions that could affect a company’s operations. Pinpoint critical functions in everyday business processes and formulate practical recovery strategies for each possible disaster scenario.
3. Conduct Business Impact Analysis:
After identifying all the potential threats, they should be thoroughly analyzed. A proper business impact analysis or BIA should be in place. Extensive lists may need to be prepared, depending on the company’s set up and geographical location.
The list can include floods, hurricanes, fires, volcanoes, and even Tsunamis. Apart from the above natural disasters, others have a much higher probability of occurring. These can include cyberattacks, downtime due to power outages, data corruption, system failures, hardware faults, and other malicious threats to data security.
4. Educate and Train:
Handling business continuity requires knowledge beyond that of IT professionals and those with cybersecurity proficiency. Companies at the upper management level need to layout the objectives, requirements, and key components of the plan before the whole team. Develop a comprehensive training program to help the team develop the required skills.
5. Isolate Sensitive Info:
Every business works with critical data allocated with the topmost security priority. Such data, when compromised or leaked, can spell the end for a company or organization. Data, such as financial records and other mission-critical information such as user login credentials, require storage where recovery is convenient and easy. Store data according to priority based on the importance of the data to the business.
6. Backup Important Data:
Every company has some critical data, which is irreplaceable. Hence, every recovery or backup plan should include creating copies of anything which is not replaceable. In a Managed Service Provider’s (MSP) case, it includes files, data on customer and employee records, business emails, etc. The plan in place should facilitate quick recovery so that businesses can recover tomorrow from any disaster that occurs today.
7. Protect Hard Copy Data:
Electronic or digital data is the main focus of modern IT security strategies. There is still an enormous volume of physical documents that businesses need to maintain daily.
For example, a typical MSP involves working with an assortment of tax documents, contracts, and employee files, which are as important as the data saved on the hard drives. Convert documents that can be digitized to minimize the loss of physical documents.
8. Designate a Recovery Site:
Disasters have the potential to wipe out a company’s data center completely.
Companies should prepare for the worst, by designating a secondary site which would act as a back-up for the primary site. The second site should be equipped with the required tools and systems to recover affected systems to ensure that the business processes continue.
9. Set up a Communications Program:
Communication within the company is vital in times of crisis. Companies should consider drafting sample messages in advance to expedite communications to suppliers and partners in times of crisis.
Business Continuity teams can use a detailed communication plan to coordinate their efforts efficiently.
10. Test, Measure, and Update:
Every important business program should be tested and measured for its effectiveness, and business continuity plans are no exceptions. Testing should include running simulations to test the team’s level of preparedness during a crisis. Based on the results, additional modifications and tweaks can be made.
