Creating a Business Continuity Plan

Having explored the importance and advantages of planning in advance to an emergency, consider putting together a Business Continuity Plan, an Emergency Pack, as well as training your staff and testing your response.

The following is a summary of the five key steps to help your organisation create a Business Continuity Plan:

  1. Understand your business - what services within your business are critical and what priority would you allocate to restore functions if they should ever fail?
  2. Risk assessment - what risks does your business face, both internally and externally?  What processes can you put in place to reduce the likelihood of the risks and the impacts of them?
  3. Consider the resource needs of each of your business functions - ie. people, premises, equipment, information, technology and external suppliers/contractors.
  4. Document information in a user-friendly format about your businesses' critical functions and the resources required including alternatives/backups for each;
  5. Train and test your staff in activating the continuity plan and the roles and procedures within it.  Undertake regular reviews and keep your plan up-to-date.

Download the Business Continuity Management Toolkit for further guidance.

Business Continuity Institute (BCI)

The BCI was established in 1994 to enable individual members to obtain guidance and support from fellow business continuity practitioners. The BCI currently has over 5000 members in 90 different countries.

Visit the BCI website for more information.

Download the 'Weathering the Storm' Guide

This guide has been produced for small and medium businesses (SMEs) in Merseyside. It will help you to understand how you could be affected by weather, including extreme events and how you can improve your chances of a quick recovery. The guide also sets out business opportunities from responding to a changing climate and provides useful tools and contact information.