On the global scale, statistics have shown that 80% of companies once faced significant business discontinuity without having and adequate business continuity plans was shut down after the event. In other words, the house was completely burn down!

In the era when information technology has led to digital transformation, which in turn had an impact on the overall way of life, it is more than ever important for companies, service providers, to protect their IT infrastructure from unexpected and unforeseen failures.

Regardless of whether the collapse is a result of a catastrophic malfunction of equipment, natural disasters or human error, companies must ensure services they offer are immune to such influences and recoverable in the shortest amount of time. In other words, it is in the companies’ interest, and for some it is an obligation to continuously undertake an organized and documented set of measures and actions aimed at preserving vital functions and services.

I had the opportunity to witness complete collapse of a data center or some of the key services as well as the reactions of people that can be described as general panic and complete chaos several times in my working career. Images of collapse that can be seen in movies. The house is burning, what will happen to the house?

On the global scale, statistics have shown that 80% of companies once faced significant business discontinuity without having and adequate business continuity plans was shut down after the event. In other words, the house was completely burn down!

In order to introduce standardization and make it easier for companies, standards that are the basis for business continuity management have been created. The goal is to establish a model through the PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) and enable continuous improvement of the established system, following the life cycle of a company.

To be able to start working on this topic, firstly you need to take a closer look, understand your organization and its purpose before establishing, implementing and maintaining a business continuity management system. It is crucial that all management structures show full commitment and support to the development of a business continuity plan, so that later, once the plan is established, all employees adhere to the defined processes and procedures. The result is explained and documented though Business Continuity Policy which serves as guarantor and support of success. It should always be remembered that the continuity plan must become an integral part of the processes of the company and the business itself.

In the beginning, it is necessary to precisely and clearly define company’s goals. They can be strategic, tactical or operational and can be applied to the organization as a whole, or on the level of the process, project, product or service. When objectives are defined, next we have to look at the overall picture and identify possible factors that can create uncertainty in the company’s operations.

A key step is the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) which anticipates the operational and financial implications of functions and processes disruption and collects the information needed to develop a recovery strategy. It is very important to identify the potential loss scenarios when assessing. There are a number of possible scenarios to be considered, since achieving the defined goals is always followed by the chance that everything will not go according to the plan and any outcome is uncertain. Practically, it is essential to define and document criteria and risks of doing business in order to manage them and reduce uncertainties as much as possible.

The BIA also has a time dimension thus providing precisely defined timeframe of business processes recovery. A poorly developed BIA can lead to a completely inadequate continuity plan, therefore special attention needs to be paid to process of creation.

All above mentioned processes must take into account internal and external factors that participate in them as well as their needs, expectations and potential damage. It is necessary to analyze and classify all factors that may be related to the continuity of the company’s operations. In particular, company must keep in mind that all legal and regulatory requirements are addressed and respected.

Based on the collected reports and the results of the implemented activities, company needs to precisely define and document business continuity goals, as well as the detailed plans for achieving these objectives. Plan also includes all the required resources, responsibilities and competencies that are essential for the organization.

Strategy should explain in what way organization plans to manage its priority activities at the moment of possible disruptions and defined impacts on these activities. It is particularly important to explain the management of this impact on people, partners and all third parties. Through risk management, plans and activities are establish so that probability of interruption is maximally reduced. When interruption actually occurs, risk management provides the period of interruption to be minimal.

Continuity plans must rely on clearly defined and documented processes and procedures covering all areas and parts of the organization – from management, through communication to operational functions.

Once defined business continuity plan continues to live like any other living organism. It grows, changes, and adapts to the needs and strategic goals of the organization. In that sense, existence of an internal audit is paramount to control whether the plans meet the requirements of the organization and whether the implementation of the plan itself has been done in the most efficient way.

It is very often forgotten that business continuity also implies introducing and documenting procedures for restoring the business to the state before the incident. It should cover plans for regular testing, training and implementation of all necessary activities in order to check and measure process performance and corrective measures.

The goal is to prevent a fire. If it already comes to it, business continuity plan will extinguish the fire with the pre-prepared measures without any harm, in an ideal case. The house will not burn down!!