Definition of Business Continuity Plan
A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a documented playbook that helps small and midsize businesses prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions. The goal of a BCP is to keep people safe, protect critical assets and data, and maintain or quickly restore essential operations after an incident.
Here are the key components of a BCP:
- Risk Assessment: Identifying likely threats such as severe weather, power outages, cyberattacks, supply chain issues, or facility disruptions.
- Business Impact Analysis (BIA): Estimating how disruptions affect key processes, customers, revenue, and compliance, and setting recovery priorities.
- Risk Mitigation: Putting safeguards in place (backups, redundancy, vendor alternatives, insurance, cybersecurity controls) to reduce the likelihood or impact of risks.
- Recovery Strategies: Defining how to continue or quickly restore critical services (e.g., remote work procedures, alternate sites, data restore steps, manual workarounds).
- Testing and Maintenance: Training staff, running drills and tabletop exercises, fixing gaps, and updating the plan as the business, staff, or technology changes.
A practical BCP helps SMBs keep core services running during emergencies, protect their reputation, meet customer expectations, and reduce financial losses.
What does business continuity mean for mid-sized companies?
- Business continuity isn’t just about preventing downtime—it’s also about how you respond when disruptions happen.
- It means being ready to maintain essential, mission-critical operations after an incident or interruption.
- This readiness is typically documented in a Business Continuity Plan (BCP).
How Aptien Helps Manage Business Continuity
- Risk Identification and Assessment: Spot and evaluate risks and threats to your day-to-day operations.
- Business Impact Analysis: Identify critical processes, systems, and suppliers needed to keep the business running.
- Process and Workflow Updates: Document policies and standard operating procedures (SOPs).
- Policy Management: Centralize and share policies, procedures, workflows, and best practices across the company.
- Employee Training: Streamline onboarding and ongoing training with guided workflows.
- Business Continuity Plan (BCP): Host and manage your BCP within the policy portal.
- Communication Plan: Set up clear channels to keep employees, customers, and partners informed during disruptions.
- Review and Improvement: Drive continuous improvement with shared tasks, tracking, and feedback.