Basics of Business continuity planning

When you think about Business continuity planning, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Business continuity planning are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

Knowledge can give you a real advantage. To make sure you're fully informed about Business continuity planning, keep reading.

Business continuity planning is the type of business planning that focuses on dealing with crises. This planning is the act of working out a way to prevent, if possible, and manage the consequences of a disaster, limiting it to the extent that a business can afford. Business continuity planning is also known as Contingency business planning. A business contingency plan is a proposed implementation plan to deal with some new emergency, event or new information. A well thought out business continuity plan can mean the difference between your business's survival and failure in the event of a crisis. Business Continuity Planning involves devising a plan that guards against business disruption in case of unforeseen events.

Besides ensuring the health and safety of all personnel, the objectives of Business continuity planning include minimizing interruptions to the business's ability to provide its products and services, minimizing financial loss and being able to resume critical operations within a specified time after a disaster. Business continuity planning necessitates the provisioning for redundancies at all levels. That includes not just servers, storage, networking equipment and connectivity links, but also other infrastructure like air-conditioning and power supplies. The plan should cover all risks that could possibly affect your business.

Business contingency plan must factor in all the risks. It should ensure continued availability, reliability and recoverability of resources. Business continuity planning should balance the costs of risk management with the opportunity cost of not taking appropriate action. Most corporates today outsource support functions and rely on third-party support for non-core business operations . So, the plan should also extend to external entities like customers, partners and suppliers.

Don't limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about Business continuity planning. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what's important.