Business Continuity Planning - Research Paper Example

? BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING Here of Proposal Research topic: Business continuity planning Content of the research paper: Jones (2011) argue that business continuity planning play an essential role of reducing the consequences of significant disruption that an organization can face. This argument situates the importance of critical business continuity planning in helping organizations reduce or recover from critical disruptions that can affect their business operations. Arguably, business continuity planning is a fundamental concept in management because recent events have made organizations realize the need of this planning. In 2007, Hewlett Packard conducted a study on the uptake of business continuity planning in some selected organizations. The results indicated that about “31% of small business” had no business continuity planning in place (Guy & Lownes-Jackson, 2011, p.55). This paper will explore how business can develop a business continuity plan to certify that they are prepared to face disruptive events that natural or manmade factors can trigger within the business environment. In this research paper, I will explore the steps that business can take to develop an efficient business continuity planning that will boost the preparedness to face disaster. In particular, the paper will delve on the steps that organizations must follow to arrive at a concrete and useful business continuity planning. First, the paper will explore first step called the initiation step where senior management of an organization meets and carry out a comprehensive review of the shortcomings in preparedness along with evaluating available resources. Second, the paper will address the second stage—business impact analysis. The paper will reveal the value of business impact analysis and its execution. The paper will also address the third stage of business continuity planning—disaster readiness strategies noting down how these organizations can carry out this process. In addition, the paper will explore the fourth stage of business continuity planning, which entails the development and implementation of a business continuity plan. This section of the paper address several issue such as how teams can define the scope of plans, propose alternate sites, define the organization of teams, organize data, determine tasks and procedures, and conduct reviews. Lastly, the fifth section of the paper will detail how organizations carry out maintenance and testing of business continuity planning they have developed. Such a paper should provide significant insights on the process of business continuity planning and embed it as a core strategy that businesses can adopt to remain competitive in a world for myriads of factors can cause business to stop their operations. Business continuity planning Business operations are often at risk of disruption by threats from natural forces or human factors. For instance, terrorists attack on World Trade Centre and the Tsunami in Japan left many businesses with the lack of capacity to do any business operations (Adkins, Thornton & Blake, 2009). It is such threats that create a need for business continuity planning because this process allows business to resume their operations and sustain critical operations when an outage occurs (Wei. 2009). In order for an organization to have a business continuity plan in place, it has to follow the five steps necessary in creating a Business continuity plan. a) Initiation the Plan This is often the first state of business continuity planning where the senior management of the organization meet, strategize, and evaluate the feasibility of the project. This meeting plays an integral role in allowing the managers to own the business continuity-planning project and dedicate various resources for its completion. In this meeting, the management will review the goals and objective of the project and align them with the business objectives of the organization (Rinehardt, 2010). In addition, the management must also identity the resources that the management will allocate to the project. Because business continuity planning does not differ much from normal planning, the team leader of the project can also give a presentation to the management about his expectation on the project. Completion of this phase paves way for the analysis of the business impact. b) Analysing the Business Impact This crucial step helps organizations gather essential data that are vital in the allocation of resources (Jones, 2011). In this step, the management must identity the operational and financial impact of significant disruptions that can occur in the organization. This analysis will be in the form of time and resources that organizations can use to resume a critical operation. Furthermore, this stage will also involve carrying out a vulnerability analysis that will determine the extent of impact of threats on the physical location of the organization. To carry successfully out the business impact analysis, the organizations must use business data gathered through interviews or questionnaires. This will allow effective rating of business processes and allowable downtime along with resources need to restore them. c) Developing Disasters Readiness Strategies This is the third stage of business continuity planning that allows the selection of appropriate disaster mitigation strategies with a focus on the cost of the selected approach. After the planning team has done an evaluation of the strategies, the team will develop a document outlining these strategies for approval (Lam, 2002). The management approval of the program will ensure that continuity of the program since substantial funding will help meet various deliverables. For instance, the funding will help in hiring of consultants and acquisition of business continuity planning software necessary in the project. Furthermore, funding will ensure that enough assets are available for maintain the business continuity planning strategies along with running alternate sites and communication channels for alerting management of outages. d) Development and Implementation of the Plan This is the core of the business continuity planning and entails some key processes. First, the team must plan the scope of the business continuity by deciding on the number of recovery areas in a number of physical locations (Jones, 2011). The team must also select and distribute telecommunication and information technology tools that will provide resumption of service when an outage occurs. These include servers, network media, intrusion software and backup solutions. In addition, the management must decide on the organization by creation positions and assigning responsibilities to them. The employees working on the business continuity planning will then meet and collect data critical for sensitive operations and archiving files or monitoring processes. e) Maintaining and Testing the Plan While this is the last stage, it still has more weight on the business continuity plan. Maintenance of a business continuity plan involves using exercises to measure variations that can help in detecting the need to enhance the plan (Lam, 2002). It also entails carrying out training events to address various deficits in skills and awareness among the BCP team. Simulation of outage also plays an important role in evaluating the preparedness of the organisation towards combating disruption of services. The BCP teams will also determine essential changes in the plan and affect them in line with changes in the organisation. These strategies will prepare the team provide the necessary support to other employees during an outage and possibly avert major economic impact that occur due to prolonged outages in the organization. References Adkins, G, Thornton, T, & Blake, K 2009, 'A Content Analysis Investigating Relationships between Communication and Business Continuity Planning', Journal Of Business Communication, 46, 3, pp. 362-403, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 March 2012. Guy, R, & Lownes-Jackson, M 2011, 'Business Continuity Strategies: An Assessment Of Planning, Preparedness, Response And Recovery Activities For Emergency Disasters', Review Of Management Innovation & Creativity, 4, 9, pp. 55-69, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 March 2012. Jones, VA 2011, 'How to Avoid Disaster: RIM's Crucial Role in Business Continuity Planning', Information Management Journal, 45, 6, pp. 36-40, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 March 2012. Lam,W. 2002. ‘Will your business keep running if disaster strikes? Following the eight steps of the business continuity planning cycle can help you be prepared’. IT Professional, 4, 3,pp.19-25 IEEE, viewed 11 March 2012. Rinehardt, C 2010, 'Business continuity: mitigating and responding to ensure continuous customer support', Transfusion, 50, 7, pp. 1604-1607, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 March 2012. Wei Ning Zechariah, W 2009, 'The strategic skills of business continuity managers: Putting business continuity management into corporate long-term planning', Journal Of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 4, 1, pp. 62-68, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 March 2012. Read More