You know you should, customers are demanding and if you want to grow the auditors will require, but how can you afford business continuity planning with the $0 budget you’ve got? Sound familiar? Lucky for you, KingsBridgeBCP has been writing Business Continuity Plans since 1983, so we’ve seen it all! Here are some excellent ways to stretch your non-existent BCP budget.
Business Continuity plans demonstrate that an organization is aware of risks and their impacts to the business. With a BCP, they are either going to accept it or plan to recover (quicker) from it. In either case, it demonstrates the acknowledgement of the risk and having taken steps to address it, hopefully resulting in the business returning the operations faster and requiring a smaller settlement. Depending on your insurance provider, you may be able to negotiate a discount on your premiums if you present them with a copy of your plan.
Ask your sale department if customers (and more importantly prospects) are asking for a Business Continuity plan? This is becoming a common requirement and you may be losing business as a result. Salespeople hate losing business (current or future), because it’s costing them money (commission) and wasting their time (taking them away from winnable engagements). Check with them and see if they have an idea of the volume it’s “costing” by not having a BCP, winning those deals may be enough to fund the planning process.
I know… I know…. Of course we’re going to say that. Hear me out: Time is money! You can save time by creating and managing your plan in a software tool. We spend hours/days/weeks/months/years figuring out how to make your BCP faster, easier and more robust. SHIELD has a Free edition, which has some limitations, but it's FREE! No hidden catches, no hidden credit card requirements. Free – FOREVER. Free is always budget friendly. If you grow out of Free, SHIELD starts at less than $20/day.
Don’t have the budget upfront to pay for BCP software? Ask if you can take the subscription model? If their monthly payments are still more than your budget can afford, ask what happens if you subscribe for a longer period of time (SHIELD offers discounts for multi-year subscriptions), ask if testimonials/referrals would impact the price (SHIELD offers discounts for both). If you have something to offer (business/cash) and the provider wants your business, they’ll most often work with you. Just ask, the worst they’ll say is no. They aren’t going to increase the price. If they do, maybe you don’t want to trust them with your critical information. This can work for consulting too! Investing a small amount in a few experts can save you a large amount of time, and thus money, down the road.
Do you already have a plan? Use that weekend flood or small storage room fire as opportunities to review how your plan might have stood up if the small incident had been something bigger. If you don’t already have a plan, these near misses are great conversation starters. Capturing the ideas from these discussions can be just what you need to start pulling a Business Continuity plan together.
While the Threat Risk Assessment (TRA) is important for learning what threats could impact your business. It’s not critical enough to derail your momentum. Regardless of what causes a business interruption, it’s likely to cause one of four possible results: no building, no people, no systems, or no third-party providers. BCi and DRI “best practices” stress you should complete a formal TRA, but “real world practices” have taught us that few/no businesses care what caused the disruption, they are more concerned about the results of the incident. So, writing your plan to prepare for these four results allows you to limit the arduous TRA process (for now). And it ensures that regardless of what happens, you’ll have a plan to address it.
If you don’t have the time to look at all the business processes within your organization, start with the obvious. If your business is making widgets make sure your widget sales, manufacturing and distribution business processes are current. Cover the basics and save the rest for another phase of the project. When you look under every stone, you’ll find out all sorts of inter-departmental dependencies you never thought possible, but to do this requires more time and effort than your BCP budget allows.
Adding another widget line or bringing on a new piece of software? Objectively ask yourself how critical that new widget line or software will be to your business before you implement it. Next revisit your recovery priorities. It’s very possible it will bump an existing recovery priority, so make sure your Business Impact Assessment (BIA) reflects this change. Small tasks make light work of keeping your BIA up-to date without having to go through a formal refresh.
With so much hardware (and software) being on a subscription service, there is opportunity to get devices that are off lease. It's very likely they are still very capable work machines. This is an excellent way to get backup devices. The vendor of the hardware likely doesn’t want them back and will sell them to you at a heavily discounted price. So, pick up a few in the event a current device is damaged and a backup is needed (almost) immediately. Don’t have back-ups for everyone as it will require a full-time job to keep the back-ups current, just have enough to cover off the critical staff and their critical operations so your business doesn’t miss a beat.
Wondering if those expensive laptops really are going home at the end of the day? Could you use the extra cash (desktops are cheaper than laptops) for your BCP budget? If you answer “yes” to both of those, try this one on for size. NOTE: We do recommend getting upper management support for this one! If your organization’s policy is to take ALL laptops home every night, once everyone has left for the day, stroll through the office and check for laptops. Find a laptop? Pick it up and leave your business card. The delinquent employee will need to make the ‘walk of shame’ to your office to reclaim their hardware. This is a definite deterrent to leaving it behind a second time! If a laptop isn’t a “requirement” for their tasks, provide them a desktop. The “savings” could go towards your "BCP on a budget".
“No time” is a usual excuse for not exercising the BCP.
Totally fair, we get it, everyone is busy and maxed out with too many tasks and not enough time.
However, it’s very likely that fire drills or emergency evacuations are requirements for your business/building. Well, here is an opportunity!! This is a perfect opportunity to check in on an unsuspecting team and do a little scenario exercise with them. Once collected in the parking lot (or at the pre-assigned muster point), now is the time to ask. “Is there anything you want from inside the building?”. “What if there were flames coming out of the roof right now?”. “How would you manage today’s critical tasks if this weren’t a drill?”. Note the answers and present it to Senior Leadership, it will show them how (un)prepared the business is in the event of an incident.
WARNING: this can be controversial. Number 12 is probably the most effective point is this list. We witnessed it with a client when their teams REALLY got back to us with their feedback, they were excited to do the BIA and the planning meetings. All of which is VERY unusual, so we asked what was going on. The CEO had decided they wanted more buy-in. So, the completion of the BCP became part of their performance review. Their performance review dictated their bonuses. This meant we always had everyone’s attention. While this doesn’t save you cash, it does increase the buy-in. Increasing the buy-in makes the job of planning easier without costing the BCP budget anything.
BONUS: it also made BCP part of the culture at the business. Now when we return, BCP rolls off everyone’s tongue! They are comfortable in Business Continuity Planning terminology and goal. This makes the process a lot less “herding cats” or “pushing a rope”.
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is defined as: "the process of determining how to continue critical business operations in the event of an incident/disaster". This makes (SMB) Business Continuity Planning extremely important for all businesses, big and small. BCP can be broken into phases, learn more about it in this blog post.
Although building a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is often viewed as a tedious and annoying task. Like flossing your teeth. Sometimes it's viewed as only ‘big businesses’ should be required to complete, the reality of BCP is quite different.
BCPs are crucial for all business, maybe more-so for small ones! According to Forbes Magazine, “businesses smaller than 500 employees account for 99.9% of U.S. businesses.” This means that if all small businesses ignored BCP. It would leave almost 100% of the U.S. business market would be ill-prepared in the event of an incident. A solid SMB Business Continuity Plan is VERY critical.
KingsBridge is a small business with less than 500 employees. We understand that big budgets for BCP simply do not exist. Most businesses do BCP because they have to, NOT because they want to (just like flossing). As a result, most small businesses either have a very small budget, or no budget at all.
Solution? Arming yourself, and your business, with excellent BCP resources is a must.
KingsBridge Is Simple & Secure Business Continuity Planning (KISSBCP) and we’re here to empower your BCP journey! Explore our wide range of (FREE) BCP tips and tools below:
Although you may be experienced in operating your business during normal times, when an incident occurs, things aren’t so ‘business-as-usual.’ Next time a disruption to your critical business operations occurs, as they always do, take time to reflect. How nice it would be to have planned for your recovery? Your plan doesn’t need to address every incident. Your recovery doesn’t need to be perfect. If it can save you one misstep, deadline, or sleepless night, it’ll all be worth it.
Take a moment now to look at the daily requirements for your business:
To help you truly consider how to best protect your business and answer these questions. Take some time to learn some of the ‘BCP Basics’ by exploring. A great place to start is the KingsBridge Blog. Listening to the KISSBCP Podcast. Watching our KISSBCP YouTube channel or watching our 6 FREE webinars. You don’t need to become an expert on all things BCP. Let's start by building the right mindset and getting familiar with the process. You can ensure that you get going in the right direction.
We commonly see companies using MS Word or Dropbox for their Business Continuity Planning (BCP) solution. The wisdom of Benjamin Franklin always comes to mind: “The best investment is in the tools of one’s own trade.” While these tools work for some, would I use a screwdriver to nail two boards together? I think not.
At KingsBridge, we always strive to provide the best tool, at the best price, for your business. As noted previously, small businesses often have little-to-no BCP budget. This means a free BCP solution could be exactly what you need. Loaded with:
1 - a user-friendly interface
2 - customizable templates
3 - better than “five 9s” of uptime
4 - SHIELD software solution gives you the structure to build and maintain a successful BCP
5 - free access to SHIELD Mobile
BONUS - and it’s FREE!
When Benjamin Franklin said “…invest in tools…”, he invented the rocking chair… So, get off yours and sign-up for our (FREE) BCP tool! Your BCPlanner self will thank you for it.
KingsBridge is a second-generation SMB Business Continuity Planning (BCP) company. I was 10 years old when my dad started working in the field in 1983. At the time, this field wasn't referred to as BCP. In 1999, he asked me if I wanted to join him in his work on a Y2K project. I said yes, took a vacation from my job, and never looked back. Working with my dad provided a lens into how much potential the field had to change and expand. Always keeping my eyes open, it allowed me to gain valuable BCP knowledge and experience. Now more than 25 years of my 50+ years have been spent working in BCP, day in and day out.
I share this with you to help you understand my point about experience. While books/theory teach us ALL there is to know about the BCP fundamentals. Identifying and understanding the “nice-to-have”, “need-to-have” and “critical-to-have” learned from the BCP can make the difference between getting it done and getting it done NOW!
When it comes to BCP, understanding and identifying these “nice-to-have”, “need-to-have” and “critical-to-have” requirements allows you to consider EVERY threat and ponder their impacts on your business. “Nice-to-have” requirements could be things like time and/or budget, and “critical-to-have” requirements would be those necessary to the recovery of critical business operations in the event of an incident. Identification of the latter allows you to focus on the impact of an incident and plan your recovery from there.
Before we distract you from signing up for our FREE BCP software tool, we’ll put off the topic of “No Building, No People, No Systems, No Suppliers” for another day.
Lots of things in this world purport to be free, but few truly are. At KingsBridge, we offer four versions of our easy-to-use SHIELD software. One is free. Truly - no cost. You don't need a budget because with it, you can build your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) entirely for free. Not only that, but we give you plenty of storage AND secure access to your plan from your phone or tablet using SHIELD Mobile. All for free.
Getting started doesn't have to be intimidating. First, identify where you are at:
1 - Are you wondering if BCP is even worth it? Start with our Return on Investment (ROI) calculator. It'll help you build a budget and value for your BCP project.
2 - Next is to prepare yourself for dealing with the rejection from Senior Management (COVID is a blip, right?). Our "Jump the Hurdles" webinar will get you prepared!
3 - Step 3 is to arm yourself with knowledge! Who says there isn't free knowledge?!? Our own knowledge section of our website is an excellent resource for all things BCP knowledge related.
3a - Download the SHIELD - Free edition (don't worry, SHIELD Mobile will sync with it).
4 - If you're already familiar with the principles of Business Continuity, you can dive right into our SHIELD Quick Start Guide.
5 - Want to be sure you've got all the bases covered? No worries, our Ultimate BCP checklist will help make sure you haven't missed anything.
If you need any help during your plan-building process, you can go to our Support page for answers to common questions as well as support documentation.
Need more? We'd love to hear from you!
KingsBridge is Simple & Secure Business Continuity Planning (#KISSBCP). Everything we do revolves around that value and we firmly believe that everyone should be able to prepare for the next incident or disaster that's coming.
You’ve invested so much, poured your heart and soul (and countless hours!) into your business. Why would you take the risk of losing it all when the unexpected happens.
In a word: Yes. Really, you don’t have a choice but to afford Business Continuity Planning (BCP). This is especially true in this uncertain era. While plans aren't free, the costs to your business will be much lower than if you have to clean up after a disaster when you don't have a plan. If an affordable BCP is truly limited budget, then we have some solutions here and here.
93% of companies that experience a disaster without a recovery plan close within 5 years. Why? Cash flow. Your insurance will keep you running through your business day, but once the money runs out, you better know who your customers are. Without a plan, you have lost your contact list, so you don’t know who owes you money, who is close to signing deals, and whom you’re targeting for future deals. In short, your cash flow has dried up and you have nowhere to turn!
50% of companies that lose their critical business systems for more than 10 days never recover. This comes down to brand loyalty. The brand loyalty that we saw a generation ago simply isn’t a constant in today’s business world. If you aren’t open for business, your customers will find someone else. This is the Internet age – it isn’t hard for your customers to find your competitors and quickly and seamlessly give them your business. Are you willing to take that chance with your customers?
Almost 60% of businesses consider customer services and competitive advantage to be the factors most critical to their company’s survival. With so much advertising and market saturation, it is very expensive to win a new customer to your solution; it is much cheaper to keep your existing customers happy. If you aren’t open for business or have limited services with no warning, your customers are going to find another solution. We have become an “instant generation”; if you can’t supply a service or product instantly, your customers will find someone else who can.
For every eight hours of down time, you lose one half of a percentage point of market share (0.5%), and it takes three years to win that market share back! Without a BCP, you won’t have three years…
Convinced? Good! Now let us move onto what you need to consider when building your affordable BCP.
What is your Recovery Time Objective (RTO)? By what time must you recover? Your RTO determines how much time you have to get everything back up and running. This helps you determine the number of resources you need to allocate when planning your recovery budget. For many small businesses, it is very important to be the first back in business. This means that, when there is an area-wide disaster, such as a snowstorm or flooding, you need a plan that gets you back in business before your competitors. This shows your clients that you take their needs seriously and are ready to go the extra step to keep them happy. Time is money for you and your clients.
You have to determine which services are key to your success and how much you will lose (customers, prospects and money) if you don’t have those services available. The services that are crucial to your success have to be back in operation first, but be careful - sometimes the crucial operations aren’t the most obvious ones.
You have to be prepared to have people go home and wait by the phone. Although they are not generating revenue for you (or helping in the recovery) you know where they are, they’re available when needed and they’re not distracting your core recovery.
While these three factors might seem obvious, when disaster does strike, you will be so swamped with decisions to make that you probably won’t even be able to remember your home phone number.
We recently worked with a small development company that experiences frequent power outages. They had backup batteries but did not have a generator. Fifty people (most of their staff) cannot continue to work without power. We calculated how much direct salary money they were losing with the power outages. The total cost was $125,000 per year! And that didn’t even include employee benefits, lost sales, and lost profits. This company now has generators and sound business continuity plan to keep them in business when power outages occur.
To calculate a gross dollar value for how much a disaster could cost you use the KingsBridge Return On Investment (ROI) calculator. The result is the lost revenue per hour (Yes that’s a pretty big number…).
KingsBridge develops plans that are cost-effective (just the savings in insurance premiums can be enough to pay for the plan) and your plan can differentiate you from your competitors. If you can guarantee to your customers that you will be open for business, regardless of the local situation, they are more likely to remain as your customers, more likely to tell others and it is most likely that you will pick up customers when others are facing a disruption of some sort.
Your customers aren’t going to wait for you to resume operations (while their deadlines expire) - they are going to look for a solution that allows them to remain competitive and operating at full capacity. You expect the same from your suppliers, so why should your customers expect less?
Ensure your market share continues to grow, keep your customers happy, keep your investors happy and keep your doors open. Put an (affordable) BCP in place. You really can’t afford not to.
