Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Critical Measures for Business Survival

Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Planning are fundamental to the well being of an organization. Clearly, they are intended to ensure continuity in the face of unforeseen or difficult circumstances. Though often perceived as a process to deal with failure of systems, Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a structured process aimed at ensuring that business resumes back to normalcy as quickly and efficiently as possible after an unplanned interruption. A strong continuity plan increases the power to transact and rely on internal and external elements of business. 

Planning for these situations is not always straight forward of course, and neither is identifying suitable sources of information, services and products. The requisite planning tasks themselves can also be challenging none more so than the building of the plan itself. Policies underpin an organizations whole approach to business continuity. They determine the fundamental practices and culture throughout the enterprise with respect to disaster recovery.    

We consider following during the process of formulation of BCP / DRP: (scroll below)

• Setting Implementation Team

• Develop Implementation Plan 

• Identify Phases & Resources

• Assign Accountability & Schedule target dates 

• Assess Business Risks 

• Develop Performance Monitoring 

• Conduct cost benefit analysis for solutions 

• Identify vendors and solutions 

• Approve Implementation plan 

• Test DRP / BCP 

Business Continuity is a complex process, often requiring specialist skills and disciplines. Through our comprehensive contingency planning services, we assist you with BCP from inception to production and beyond. Risk analysis (and business impact analysis) is fundamental to the process of ensuring a sound business continuity and disaster recovery plan. Understanding the potential impacts of major disaster scenarios, and establishing the risks that could result in such scenarios, is the first major step to ensuring the plan meets the real needs of the organization.