How important is it to have a business continuity plan?

Qual a importância de ter um plano de continuidade operacional?

When a company sees its daily operations stalled in an unplanned manner, the losses are immense and very damaging to the business. One of the biggest impacts concerns the loss of revenue due to the interruption of the supply of products and services. Ultimately, an unscheduled stoppage of business can doom your company to death. So, many managers are beginning to seriously adopt a business continuity plan. Let’s see in today’s article how this plan works and what its advantages are!

Why is having a business continuity plan so important?

25% of companies do not reopen after a disaster, and only 35% of small and medium-sized companies are betting on a disaster recovery plan, the latter being the ones that can most easily achieve success after an unexpected incident. In the absence of a loss of data can be irrecoverable, severely affecting team productivity and the company’s reputation. In addition, the loss of sensitive information may result in contractual fines and penalties for legal non-compliance, such as those imposed by the GDPR. These facts are clear and show the need to have a business continuity plan in your business!

What are the key features of a successful business continuity and disaster recovery plan?

  • List of updated contacts – internal and external – so that the activation of the plan can be executed in a simple and fast way;
  • Documented procedures that include the lines of action to respond to specific situations (for example, evacuation plans, server recovery and recovery of communication services);
  • Regular exercises to test the smooth operation of the plan using emergency response team members – most organizations forget the importance of these tests – an untested recovery plan does not pass a plan of good intentions
  • Advance agreements with organizations to provide support services such as space for temporarily displaced employees and rapid replacement of damaged equipment;
  • Agreements with financial institutions to obtain liquidity in order to ensure business continuity and payments;
  • Administrative management support.

What are the business areas and processes that companies should consider when developing a plan?

All areas of the business are important for the development of a business continuity and disaster recovery plan. All department heads must contribute to this plan, indicating what their department does, what their intervention in the critical processes of the company, on which the normal operations depend (what technologies, applications and systems are necessary to carry out the daily tasks ), where the most important data is stored, and the maximum time of data loss and stoppage that the department can take. This information is then used to identify the most critical business processes and to set the base requirements for your business. Another important factor relates to risk assessment, which examines internal and external situations that may threaten the operation of the business. This assessment also identifies identified vulnerabilities that, if left untreated, can become real threats.

 

We live in a connected world, where the digital revolution has transformed the way we deal with the IT resources of companies. Nowadays, technological tools are much more valued than before and there is a need to preserve resources physically and digitally. For an increasing level of threat and risk, it is necessary to invest in the prevention and timely preparation to recover from a disaster situation, ensuring the continuity of the business in any scenario. With the range of current solutions, there is no excuse for not having a recovery solution, however basic, for the day when what you thought was unlikely to happen to you.

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