Exploring Key Advantages of Business Continuity Plan

The modern business landscape is fraught with potential disruptions, both big and small. Natural disasters, cyberattacks, pandemics – they can all bring your operations to a screeching halt. But, by creating and implementing a solid business continuity plan, you can mitigate the effects of these interruptions and help companies continue functioning. In this article, we’ll explore the many advantages of business continuity plans and look at how these plans contribute to long-term resilience and success.

Whether it’s a power outage, a major data breach, or a global crisis, any unexpected interruption can pose a serious risk to your company. The advantages of a business continuity plan can help ensure that you’re well-prepared for these inevitable disruptions and they can help you minimize their impact.

What is Business Continuity Planning?

A business continuity plan is a detailed document that outlines the steps an organization will take to maintain essential operations during and after a disruption. It’s more than just a disaster recovery plan – it covers every aspect of your business, from personnel and facilities to communication channels, vital business processes, key suppliers, and third-party vendors.

Business continuity planning ensures businesses are prepared for challenging times. It isn’t simply about putting together a static document; it’s about establishing a process that is continually reviewed, updated, and tested to keep your plan as robust as possible. This process should incorporate a strategy for dealing with potential risks while protecting company reputation.

Core Advantages of Business Continuity Planning

Business continuity plans are more than just “good practice,” they’re essential. The development and execution of these plans help a company prepare for many different disruptions, but having this process in place is just the beginning. Businesses should strive for continuous improvement.

Ideally, a good business continuity program uncovers weak spots and operational inefficiencies, which strengthens your organization overall. A good plan helps mitigate potential disruptions while protecting market share. It can also help maintain operations, which is critical in today’s business world.

Reduced Downtime During Disruptions

Every moment of downtime for a business equals lost revenue. This is one of the most tangible advantages of business continuity planning. A solid BCP can greatly reduce downtime during a disruptive event because it identifies potential vulnerabilities and allows a company to develop contingency plans that can be swiftly put into action.

That proactive approach can ensure a quicker return to productivity after the event has passed. A BCP can also help secure supply chains, which are essential for many businesses. This strategy planning is an important part of business continuity.

Protect Business Assets and Data

For most companies today, assets like data, physical infrastructure, intellectual property, and critical technology systems are absolutely invaluable. An effective BCP prioritizes the protection of these vital assets, safeguarding them even during major disruptions.

Disaster recovery plans often focus on the data recovery component of your business operations. In a situation where a business’ data is stolen or its infrastructure is damaged, there can be major financial and reputational repercussions. Having a plan that outlines critical processes that support rapid recovery can greatly help a company survive even challenging scenarios.

Supply Chain Resiliency

An interruption to even a single link within your supply chain can severely impact business operations. When a disruption hits a business can lose revenue, experience decreased productivity, and experience damage to its reputation. This disruption can also trickle down to suppliers.

It’s often not enough to simply identify critical suppliers in your continuity plan, it is critical to ensure your plan focuses on protecting the overall flow of goods and services. In addition to securing a supply chain, BCPs can also help mitigate risks associated with data breaches. Businesses must implement strong cybersecurity measures to protect their data.

Enhanced Decision-Making Capabilities During a Crisis

Crisis events demand that quick, informed decisions are made to ensure rapid recovery. The ability to quickly adapt and pivot to alternate resources or processes can mean the difference between continued operations or financial losses.

When the team is feeling pressured by a critical event, it can be very difficult to determine the best course of action. One of the most significant advantages of business continuity plans is that they help guide the decision-making process. A company will experience far more effective crisis management because, with a robust plan in place, they can shift from just “reacting” to events to acting proactively with a strategic focus.

Regulatory and Compliance Requirements

Businesses often operate under the guidelines of legally-mandated standards that call for particular levels of preparedness, and failure to meet these regulations can result in fines or other penalties. Developing a comprehensive business continuity strategy is one of the best ways a business can make sure it operates within legal frameworks.

In addition to helping to stay ahead of potential legal problems, there is often another unexpected bonus – reduced insurance premiums. Insurers appreciate the risk mitigation benefits inherent in well-developed continuity plans, and they often reward that proactive approach with lower premium rates. These plans often include business continuity activities that can help minimize downtime.

Enhanced Reputation & Brand Trust

Maintaining operational capacity during times of disruption helps reassure customers, vendors, investors, and stakeholders, preserving their trust and your company’s image. When an organization has publicly demonstrated it prioritizes maintaining operations and a quick return to normal operations, customers and other key groups perceive it as more stable.

A company can significantly strengthen its overall reputation and protect against the negative effects on vendors, stakeholders, and customers. Having a plan in place can make a significant difference in maintaining a positive company reputation and ensuring effective business continuity.

Increased Employee Confidence & Morale

Nothing contributes to peace of mind and higher morale for your workforce than knowing their employer has planned for what happens should the worst occur. A sense of security leads to better job satisfaction, better productivity, and deeper loyalty. Knowing there’s a clearly defined plan and specific processes in place creates confidence in knowing exactly what to do when a crisis happens.

The Risks of *Not* Having a Business Continuity Plan

Ignoring the critical need to put together a strong BCP, particularly in the current business environment, comes with real risks. Cyberattacks are a big one, they continue to increase every year, and many smaller companies feel they’re exempt from the consequences of this risk. It’s a mistaken belief.

The 2021 Conti ransomware attack on Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE) demonstrates what happens when this attitude leads to a disaster. While this specific organization was in charge of health and social services in the country, the results would have been devastating for *any* company unprepared for such an event.

Initially, a single user inadvertently opened a phishing email. After nearly two months with the ransomware undetected within their system, cyber attackers finally activated it. At that point, attackers had infiltrated their database, creating chaos. As the attack unfolded, Ireland’s National Healthcare Network was taken offline to slow the spread of the ransomware.

What should have been an easy solution ended up disrupting many crucial administrative processes and led to the cancellation of doctor’s appointments and the cessation of vital medical services across the entire country. This highlights the importance of having a plan in place, as business continuity challenges can arise unexpectedly.

Restoring their network involved the extremely costly and challenging work of reinstating damaged systems, making sure everything was secure again, and figuring out how to reestablish trust with a wary public. To give you an idea of how damaging even small, local disruptions can be, it is a staggering reality that more than 50% of companies fail within two years after a natural disaster.

To put this in stark perspective, an estimated 93% of those unprepared for a cyberattack are likely to cease operations altogether within a year. It is critical for all businesses to be proactive to ensure continuity of operations in times of crisis. Organizations must take a holistic approach to planning which goes beyond having just a basic business continuity plan.

Integrating solid, multilayered cybersecurity, the consistent testing of possible threats, and a process that incorporates contingencies in case a failure does happen will keep things operational during any type of disruptive event. Continuity planning ensures that businesses can recover quickly and efficiently from disruptions. This is essential for maintaining operations and protecting a company’s bottom line.

Developing a Successful Business Continuity Plan

Building your company’s first business continuity plan can feel a bit daunting at first, but if you approach the task methodically, step-by-step, you’ll discover the advantages of business continuity planning as the project comes together. This includes understanding the importance of continuity management.

Identify the Potential Business Interruptions

First, think about the type of disruptions that could have an impact on your normal, daily operations. For instance, would your business be shut down due to severe weather like hurricanes, winter storms, flooding, or tornados? Does your company operate in areas where earthquakes or wildfires are a real threat? Is your business in an area with high levels of crime?

It’s also important to think about “internal” threats as well. These can be situations such as utility outages, equipment failures, a burst water pipe, cyber attacks, even a bomb threat. The possibilities may seem endless, but make a thorough list and then prioritize it. The disruptions most likely to occur, or which will have the most damaging consequences, should get your primary attention.

Conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

When a business wants to determine how an unexpected event will disrupt normal operations, it should always begin by performing a thorough business impact analysis. This deep dive looks at each aspect of the business from a “what if this failed?” perspective.

How will each disruption identified impact your finances? Look at your workforce. How might employees, individual business units, specific operational processes, IT systems, vital technology platforms, customers, your overall supply chain, even your reputation, be negatively impacted by this specific event? Once the BIA has identified potential weak spots it becomes far easier to set priorities, to estimate the financial implications of the interruption, to get a more accurate idea of acceptable recovery time objectives (RTO), and to figure out which business units require restoration most quickly.

Develop Your Business Continuity Plan

There’s no perfect “one-size-fits-all” strategy for this task because each BCP must reflect the needs and operational processes unique to a given business. You can begin by brainstorming with key department managers or team leaders and put together an outline.

Include items such as an introduction and overview of the document, information about roles and responsibilities, the prioritization of mission-critical functions (from your BIA), how business operations and processes will be handled for each disruptive event identified, and specific action plans. Determine the most important tools or technology platforms needed during a disruption and decide on how and when backups, or alternative locations, will be brought online.

As part of your strategy determine what your backup plan is for employee communications should traditional avenues fail, this can include text alerts or secure online portals. Decide on appropriate alternative office spaces should the building sustain damage or become inaccessible.

Implement and Communicate Your Business Continuity Plan

After putting in the extensive work of gathering all this critical information, make sure everyone knows where to find this plan. It should be easily accessible to key employees at any time. Establish a method of keeping this important document up to date as the business changes.

One strategy is to hold regular training sessions to teach employees about their roles and responsibilities. A well-designed plan helps improve the chances that your business will be up and running in an efficient way with the least amount of disruption and damage, and this will give everyone a stronger sense of confidence.

Test & Continually Update Your Business Continuity Plan

Testing is an important piece of your process that should be performed on a consistent, regular basis. Many larger organizations will schedule annual tabletop exercises, full-scale rehearsals, or conduct a BIA periodically. But for smaller organizations, it is just as critical that they establish a plan that tests how resilient their BCP really is, even if it means something as basic as “what if we don’t have power for a week, do we have all of the supplies and procedures ready?”. The overall goal for both large and small businesses should be a consistent evaluation of how their current continuity plan will truly handle a crisis. What changes need to be implemented? What went well?

FAQs About Advantages of Business Continuity Plan

What are the 5 Main Benefits of BCM?

Here’s a breakdown of five key benefits inherent in having an effective BCM program:

Benefit	Description
Reduces Downtime	Prevents operational slowdowns during an emergency. A fast restoration time equates to smaller losses in revenue.
Reduces Financial Loss	Identifies mission-critical functions that contribute to business continuity. This will provide you with a roadmap for returning to normal operational capacity and income streams quicker after an event occurs.
Better Regulatory Compliance	Identifies regulations relevant to the organization and prioritizes their recovery after a disruption. Helps a business avoid penalties.
Stronger Supply Chain Management	By developing detailed action plans that outline how each aspect of your supply chain (raw materials to finished goods to customers) functions, you’ll be able to rapidly restore any disrupted pieces and minimize disruptions to your supply chain during a critical event.
Enhanced Brand Reputation & Customer Trust	Customers and key stakeholders have confidence in knowing you prioritize their ability to obtain goods and services from your company, even during an unexpected event.

What is the main purpose of a Business Continuity Plan?

While a BCP differs from a traditional Disaster Recovery plan, which primarily addresses a company’s IT infrastructure and systems, they both are designed to help minimize disruptions to an organization. By establishing processes and protocols to support operational capacity, these documents outline the steps and contingencies a company will need before, during, and after any disruptive event, but the primary goal of these plans is always a return to normal business functions as quickly as possible.

Conclusion

The many advantages of business continuity plan are pretty compelling, especially in a business landscape riddled with unpredictable events. Having a clear plan that mitigates the effects of any interruption, no matter the size or scale, should be one of the most significant goals for modern organizations that want to experience success, retain customers, and stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly-evolving, highly-competitive environment. While investing in building a good plan is certainly essential, perhaps the best advice is to continually revisit your strategies, making sure your BCP always reflects current needs and operational capabilities.

A good business continuity plan can make all the difference when a business faces an unplanned disruption to their day-to-day operations. A strong BCP can offer numerous advantages beyond what we’ve discussed today. For instance, some of the long-term advantages of business continuity plans include improved communications between business units and individual departments, and many companies are able to take this even a step further to implement redundant systems, high availability (HA) for their key platforms, or more extensive backups for critical technology and business operations. Companies often begin by simply focusing on how quickly they can restore functionality, but over time they discover it is far more beneficial (and lucrative) to adopt an attitude and operational system that puts preventing these interruptions front and center. For anyone concerned with how their business will function through inevitable disruptions to their normal way of doing things, exploring the many advantages of a business continuity plan can be one of the smartest and most lucrative first steps in taking their operational processes to the next level.

Want to work with us or learn more about Business Continuity?

• Our proprietary Resiliency Diagnosis process is the perfect way to advance your business continuity program. Our thorough standards-based review culminates in a full report, maturity model scoring, and a clear set of recommendations for improvement.
• Our Business Continuity and Crisis Management services help you rapidly grow and mature your program to ensure your organization is prepared for the storms that lie ahead.
• Our Ultimate Guide to Business Continuity contains everything you need to know about Business Continuity while our Ultimate Guide to Crisis Management contains the same for Crisis Management.
• Learn about our Free Resources, including articles, a resource library, white papers, reports, free introductory courses, webinars, and more.
• Set up an initial call with us to chat further about how we might be able to work together.