The recent Covid-19 Coronavirus outbreak that has engulfed the entire world has thrown many businesses into complete disarray and with many hurriedly for immediate disaster recovery and alternate workspace options for their employees. With many getting infected even in big organisations, i.e Facebook & Grab and even in government bodies , no one is immune to it.

Many big organisations already have their own Business Continuity Planning or Workspace Disaster Recovery framework in place, even way before this virus outbreak. Besides virus outbreaks , disasters or events like , flooding, thunderstorm , tsunami, earth quake or even wartime can disrupt any business operation and reduce any business to mere tatters in a matter of days.

In view of the above, therefore its critical that every business , big or small should have a proper Business Continuity Plan ( BCP ) in place.  Without a properly thought plan or strategy, one business can go out for good in the event of a disaster outbreak.

What should there be in a BCP and how shall we plan for a proper one that possess all aspects of a holistic contingency plan ?

A business continuity plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization must follow in the face of disaster, whether fire, flood or cyberattack. Here’s how to create one that gives your business the best chance of surviving such an event.

Business Continuity refers to maintaining all business functions or posses resumption of all business activities in the event of a disruption due to a disaster.

Let ’s look at the major components of a BCP plan.

1. Human Resource- Are all your teams kept separate ? With all of them functioning properly should any of them is down ?

Arguably the most important aspects of a company will be Human Resource. Without it , no companies are expected to function properly.  Key personnel including department or business function heads ought to be kept distinct and separate.  In the event if one department or department head is down, another department has to step up and maintain such operations as smoothly as possible.

2. Alternative work sites options to keep your workforce safe and 100 % functional

Is your team operating under one roof in one location ? Have you kept your team and headcount divided in several other locations ? 

What kind of workspace options will be ideal in the event of a BCP ?

Do you think that you will need an all fully furnished office complete with all equipment ready to be deployed in a disaster recovery scenario ?  So that your team can reply on  just a plug and play solution , based on a ad- hoc situation.

Whether its co-working, serviced offices , private office suites , it could well serve your needs.  To be more specific, we will need to look into the geographical requirements of your business and all back up options for alternative work sites.

3.  IT back up contingency.

With our core business functions kept within our IT , are all your IT and databases kept up to notch and with separate back up on and off site , most importantly secure. ?  Are they well kept in the cloud as well as the server ? It’s critical that they are being maintained properly even during peace time.

4.   Key critical business functions.  Creating plans to maintain such operations.

All key business functions and roles are created with a clear plan behind it. Identify dependencies between each role and business function. Create acceptable downtime for each role and area.

5 . Testing of all the above.

Testing the above plan is only way is truly know it works properly.  Real challenge here is how do we go about testing it. Many times the real test came when actual disaster actually happened like the current Cover 19.

6. Review

No plan is perfect. Review must be done continuously to ensure continuity and improvements with constant tweaks to be done to. BCP plans should always be kept optimum and allowed room for improvement.

Not sure of how to go about it in getting your a proper BCP and workspace options for you and your team in time for a disaster or virus outbreak ? Contact us today and let you know how we can help !