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Business Continuity
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Business continuity (BC) is planning for the inevitable – even though we hope it never happens.
Do you have a plan for how your organisation could keep going under every circumstance? Do you have a plan on how to get your systems up and running as quickly as possible after a breach? If you do little planning, you are falling at the first hurdle.
A business continuity plan (BCP) is about risk assessing every single circumstance that could force your organisation to halt and stop running, with the action then being to come up with a suitable way to be able to remediate this problem and come up with a solution ahead of time to get your organisation back on its feet with minimal disruption. Your BCP usually also work in support of your backup and disaster recovery solutions.
COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on business continuity and tested many organisations. Therefore, alongside your organisational BCP, there should be operations to ensure that BCP for COVID-19 is reviewed, monitored and communicated across these five key areas:
All your people should be following the government’s advice to work from home where possible and are proficient at using your chosen virtual conferencing solutions to engage with other staff members, customers, suppliers and the like. Your local office will have BCP plans around people working safely from the office, in line with Government guidance on social distancing, and how you safely monitor those staff members for ‘track and trace’ in the event of an infection. Undertake risk assessments of the current working environments and consult your people – it is important that your staff are included to gain their confidence and trust about coming back to the office; align to and follow further guidance from the Government’s and Public Health organisations in your region.
Equip your staff with the right tools to undertake their work effectively and securely – see our blog about secure working tips. Embrace and support your users to understand digital inclusion – collaboration through video conference calls; instant messaging technologies and how to work effectively together across multiple platforms. Ensure that you have robust polices in place that support secure remote working so that data integrity and confidentiality is always maintained. Use secure VPN technology irrespective of your device – PC, laptop, tablet, phones and while face to face meetings are not advised just now, embrace technology and digital services to ensure continuity of service with colleagues and customers.
You should have already mobilised your Pandemic Response Team, who should also be a sub-set of your senior leadership team and your Incident Management Response Team. Have within your BCP’s either a section (or a distinctly separate document) for following infectious disease and Pandemic Management Response Plan. Undertake full risk assessments for each working environment and support the on-going, changing development of your BCP.
You may work with a single customer, multiple, or service citizens across the UK and beyond, so it’s vital that you have within your BCP, a ‘communication plan’ that works across your network of staff, customers and citizens. This ensures a standardised BCP and Incident plan (including that pandemic response plan) and how, when and with whom to communication in the event of invocation.
It is also important to maintain clear communication with your supply chain – those partners with whom you have contractual obligations or managed service deliverables to ensure that their plans also align to yours and where agreements are mutual, plans are in place to ensure continuity of the supply chain. Part of this plan should also include an appropriate inventory of all maintained or outsourced core technology and other services, such as utilities, essential to maintaining your operations.
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