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what is business continuity bcp
Posted by: Skip Williams on 17/01/2025

What is Business Continuity BCP and why you need it in 2025

In today’s world, businesses face a lot of risks. Unknowns and little patience that can put their business’ “life” at risk. A strong business continuity (BCP) plan is more important than ever before. Threats are becoming more impactful as the margins are getting considerably narrower.

Let’s discuss the elephant in the room. “What is BCP and how can it help your business stay strong after an incident/ disaster?”. Business Continuity (BCP) Planning helps companies identify threats, determine their impacts and find alternate operations to keep the business operating.

Why Business Continuity BCP planning for business stability is important

Because the world is full of uncertainty and while some of it can be beneficial, a lot of it isn't. No matter what the threat is (a sudden power outage, a data breach, or a world health crisis). Your organization needs to be ready to respond and return stability to your business and its customers. This is why business continuity (BCP) planning is so important. BCP is the process of identifying, measuring and creating a response to these instabilities. BCP's primary goal is keeping operations running even when things go wrong.

A well-thought-out BCP helps businesses lessen the effects of disruptions, reduce downtime, and make sure workers and stakeholders are safe. Businesses can make themselves much more resilient and agile by effectively addressing potential risks and weaknesses. BCP isn't just about surviving a crisis; it's also about leveraging everyone else’s tough times to get ahead in the market.

In our other post; “Business Continuity Planning Steps” we unpack the phases a BCP should include. For more details, read that post as this post is going to deal with the higher-level pieces of BCP.

All effective Business Continuity Plans have the same important parts that build on each other. Making sure the plan (and the company) can handle delays and return to normal operations as quickly as possible.

These parts are:

  1. A Threat Risk Assessment (TRA) to determine what threats to consider.
  2. A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to determine what impact those threats would have.
  3. A Plan that addresses the impacts, with the goal of returning your business to normal operations.
  4. Socializing the plan through exercising the plan against your biggest impacts.
  5. As the business changes, the plan needs to reflect these changes, so maintaining the plan is the recurring step.

Business Continuity BCP - Threat Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis

Most of the time, conduct the TRA and BIA in sequence with each other. Include the threats are the most likely to occur? What are the impacts if they happen? And determine the resources for recovery.

Understanding the threats that can impact your business (global supply chains have increased what’s possible) is a key first step. Before you go off on the path of a Zombie Apocalypse, look at past data, trends and to confirm, read this post to understand WHAT threats you should even consider. Threats are split into natural threats and man-made threats. Natural threats include hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. Man-made threats include cyberattacks, data breaches, and problems with the supply chain.

Once you’ve identified your threats, figure out how they might affect your business. This means looking at; how likely, how bad and how long. By quantifying these factors, you can organize your response efforts to address the critical functions. Remember, function #1 is keeping the business operating.

It's important to think about both external and internal threats that could impact your business’ operations. Possible threats include; old technology systems, backup and recovery systems that are outadted, or employees who aren't trained properly. The TRA/BIA isn’t just the foundation of BCP, it can be useful in identifying areas overlooked or forgotten. Use your TRA/BIA findings to shore up those areas to avoid them becoming threats to your business.

A well thought out TRA/BIA identifies how to respond to incidents and how to best use their resources.

Business Continuity BCP - Planning for reaction and recovery

With the biggest threats identified and arranged in their likelihood. The next phase in Business Continuity BCP Planning is deciding on thought out responses and recovery. Making plans to identify what to do before, during, and after an incident are the first steps.

Setting clear roles and responsibilities is the first step in making a BCP. Inevitably people will be looking into other departments and want to “Help”. This will lead to them forgetting their own responsibilities. Thus, leaving their tasks unattended which leads to failure of the recovery. This means picking out key people who will oversee carrying out the plan. CAUTION: Don’t fall into the trap of putting the most senior people in the highest positions. This isn’t normal operations and they might not be the best in an abnormal situation. By making these responsibilities clear, you can make sure that everyone works together to handle a crisis effectively.

Business Continuity BCP - Communication protocols

During a disruption, it's critical to communicate clearly. This keeps workers, customers, suppliers, and other important people informed and up to date. Set up multiple methods of communication. Group internal and external ones. This ensures the information is spread quickly and correctly which is essential to a solid recovery.

Business Continuity BCP - Maintenance and Exercising combat Ad-Hoc

You should review and update your BCP on a regular basis. It is imperative your BCP to keep up with changes in the business and any new risks.

The kryptonite for BCP is “ad-hoc” planning. If your responders are reading the plan. While the plan says to take direction from Jeff and they know Jeff left the company 6 months ago. Matters will be “taken into their own hands”, resulting in a recovery out of sync with the rest. They might end up undoing tasks that have just been done, not maliciously, just because they didn’t know.

To avoid this, make sure your plan in maintained/updated regularly so it reflects the business. To identify and update your plan, the best way to do this is drills and exercises. These drills should be conducted on a regular basis to stress the plan works and to incorporate lessons learned. This ensures your organization stays strong and ready for any future incidents by constantly changing and improving your strategy.

Business Continuity BCP makes sure people are strong in the face of confusion

Finally, business continuity (BCP) planning is critical in making sure that your company can operate after an incident. By looking for possible threats and risks. Making a complete response and recovery plan. With regular reviews and updates, the BCP gives companies the confidence to keep their operations running smoothly.

Expecting the unexpected. It as it is no longer a matter of chance in today's unpredictable business world. It's a competitive advantage and leverage it. A strong combination of effective risk assessment, impact analysis and mitigation strategies, leads organizations find weak spots, make backup plans, and lessen the effects of disruptions. Not only does this keep your business from losing money, but it also builds trust with customers.

Planning for business continuity is an investment in your company's long-term growth and ability to stay in business. Make your company resilient and prepared so it can weather any storms and come out better on the other side. Don't gamble with the future of your business; make a solid business survival plan today! You have to be sure your company can handle anything tomorrow.

About KingsBridge

At KingsBridgeBCP, we provide Business Continuity Planning solutions that cater to businesses of all sizes. Our SHIELD software packages, from SHIELD - Free to SHIELD - Platinum, offer the right fit for everyone, combining industry expertise and best practices to ensure you’re always prepared. Whether you’re looking for software or services, we’ve got you covered with tailored solutions that deliver exceptional value and peace of mind. Explore our range of BCP software and services today to discover how KingsBridgeBCP can help you safeguard your business.

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