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BC & DR Plans |
What are BC and DR Plans?
Business Continuity (BC) plans are designed to assist the organisation in ensuring an effective response to incidents which may occur and which threaten normal operations through to the resumption of normal activity. In small organisations, one BC plan may be sufficient to cover all operations and processes, whereas in a larger organisation a number of plans may be required in the interests of practicality and maintainability to cover different sites or office locations and/or different organisational functions.
Business Continuity Plan can also be used as an overarching term to refer to the continuity policy, strategy, response hierarchy, contingencies, plans etc. which when taken together ensure continuity of the organisation’s operations.
A Disaster Recovery (DR) plan traditionally refers to a document covering restoration of technology systems and services and voice and data communications following an incident. Some organisations have a high-level DR plan covering the overall recovery approach with a number of disaster recovery procedures written at a detailed, technical level for use in rebuilding systems, services etc.
It is worth noting that organisations tend to have differing names for their BC and DR plans, including crisis management plans, business interruption plans, emergency response plans, business recovery plans etc. Naming conventions are of less importance than the need to have plans which are appropriate to the organisation’s size and culture.
What should my Business Continuity Plan contain?
It should contain sufficient information to enable a worst-case scenario to be managed and the key operations of the organisation to continue. By taking a worst-case scenario approach, the plan can be adapted for lesser incidents should they occur. Plans are best tailored to the needs of the organisation, although the usual contents of a plan include the incident escalation process; clearly defined responsibilities for managing incidents; emergency procedures for ensuring staff welfare, damage limitation etc.; the contingencies available to use to maintain operations; recovery priorities and resource requirements for processes/functions; and task lists covering how to manage the incident and maintain continuity of key processes/functions.
Should my plan contain emergency contact details for staff?
Only if your staff have agreed to this, otherwise you could be breaching their right to privacy. Remember that your plan may be viewed by auditors, customers, advisers etc. By including staff contact details, your plan needs to be treated as a confidential document, which hinders the ability to publish the plan internally as part of staff awareness and show the plan to third parties where it is requested by them as part of a contractual agreement. A further problem arising from including contact details in your plan is that these details can change relatively frequently, which creates a plan maintenance issue.
How can Teed Business Continuity help?
We can help by reviewing your existing plans against best practice, testing your plans or developing plans for you. |
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