Business Downtime? In a crisis situation business downtime to a minimum is a must-have. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan are the must-haves. These two plans may sound ide...
Business Downtime? In a crisis situation business downtime to a minimum is a must-have. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan are the must-haves.
These two plans may sound identical, but they are two entirely different strategies. These safeguard your business from disruptions like natural disasters, power outages, cyber-attacks, etc.
Both plans are equally important as any other business plan for the growth and success of your business.
Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
A business continuity plan is the set of actions your business needs to take in case of a crisis. It ensures that your business is running.
Having a matured and reviewed bcm helps your business doesn’t come to a standstill in case of disruption.
A business continuity plan should solve problems before they happen. Therefore, it should lessen the impact of problems that crop up, and get business back to normal. As a result with as little downtime as possible.
Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
This is a subsection of business continuity planning. It covers restoring the critical functions of a business after a crisis. Those systems are mostly communications, hardware, and IT assets. A disaster recovery plan is to ensure minimal business downtime and focuses on getting technical operations back to normal. Disaster recovery should be done in the shortest time possible.
Disaster Recovery Plan is very critical for small businesses. You may fail after a disaster if you don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place.
Why both are important
Though BCP & DRP look similar they are different. The difference is when and how you put them into action. A business continuity plan is the steps you follow to keep your business open and functioning during a crisis. The disaster recovery plan is what happens after the crisis has passed. It outlines how you need to get business back to normal. They are two separate plans, but the overlap strengthens your business during a disruption.
Creating two plans depends upon your business priorities. You should analyze how long you can wait to get your business back into full operations. The loss of business can be weighed against the costs of business continuity and disaster planning and execution.
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this exercise becomes more relevant and necessary. Engaging a reliable BC partner and consultant would address this need in a cost-effective and compliant manner.
Watch this video to know more about Business Continuity Planning:
