Business Continuity Plan for Unity Fast Food Kiosk - Case Study Example

Business continuity plan Student’s Name Course & Code Professor’s Name University City Date Business continuity plan for unity fast food kiosk The success of a business not only does it depend on the capital base but also on many other unexpected factors (Healey & Palepu 2012). Unity fast food kiosk is a small medium size business that wants to operate along the streets of London and it deals with preparation of fast foods which are most liked by many people in the city. This kind of business is characterized by low capital compared to large sized business and thus faces major problems in running the business; the business has been operating successfully as the owners are devoted to their work and tend to make sure they deliver the best to their customers. In the business world there are much of speculations and uncertainty as things keeps arising from a point that no one expects, it is therefore important for the business to remain focus and be ready to tackle any issue that may arise in the long run to ensure continuous sustainability (Coombs 2014). As much as it may seem normal to expect risks in business, it is necessary for the business to come up with means possible to address and be able to tackle risks that may occur to the business, this is the point where the business continuity plan comes in to help in handling risks affecting the business. In real life situation, people rarely talks about the certainty of failing especially in business. it should be known that disasters in business often occurs, and it is the work of a well formulated business continuity plan that comes in to give the business strength to continue succeeding even in the times of difficulties that may arise in daily operations (Belbin 2012). The aim of the business continuity plan is to ensure the long run sustainability of the business despite the difficulties because of a disaster that may exist. Some of the disasters may be economical, natural calamities, or unexpected managerial complications which may pose a challenge to the success of the business if not well handled. Any business therefore before starting must therefore prepare a clear business continuity plan to counter any unexpected disaster that may arise unknowingly in the long run operation (Coombs 2014). This plan should be up to date with the current trends in the business environment for it to suit its current purpose to avoid failure in the business or complete exit of the business from the market due to unexpected occurrences. This retrospective paper therefore explains the continuity plan for the unity fast food small business that is to operate in London. Business continuity plans has to contain the crucial recovery procedures and strategies that are required to resume critical services for the business (Myers 2013). critical services for the business are important especially in the down turn of the business due to disturbance event that occurred unexpectedly, this done with an aim of ensuring that the business goes back to its point of operation that it originally occupied before being disturbed by unforeseen events (Snedaker 2013). For the unity business, it is important to identify the most important activities starting from the management, and the consumers and analyze how any unforeseen factor may affect them and how to handle it in case it arises. The success of our small business will largely depend on the people running it and whether the business will sustain the customers for the long term period, a good continuity plan should link itself to these two factors to ensure they remain in operation in the long run period. The plan for this business has procedures and methods that the business can use to resolve the issues that may affect its operation and how to go about to ensure the continuity of operations immediately after being faced with disaster shocks, the plan covers every individual and part of the business areas including those who will own the business as they may be faced by things like unexpected illness. Many business have relied their continuity plan to natural disasters mostly like fires, droughts, or floods. The plan should cover a large region including security which in the current days is a problem to many businesses, in the case of fast food business, health issues have to be taken into consideration in the continuity plans as the food is sensitive issue to human life and to maintain customers, it must be well captured in the plan as many diseases nowadays arise from the consumption of different food commodities. The plan has to be well prepared and follow the right steps among them being; stating the scope of the plan, defining the requirements of the said plan, developing the plan and being able to test it to be ready for the backup in case of uncertainties (Myers 2013) . The plan for unity fast food business is built on the unexpected food poisoning which is the worst case scenario that can lead to the collapse of the business. if the continuity plan can solve our worst case scenario, it shows confidentiality as it can be able to handle the small cases that may threaten the continuity of the business. Methodologies in monitoring critical dependencies In operating business whether small medium or large, one aims to remain high in competition. For the business to continue growing in the long run it is important to retain vital customers and great work force to push the activities of the business to the positive direction, the best way to realize this positive trend is through measuring how the business has recovered from a major unexpected event (Sharmer et al., 2012). The customers and other business related to the fast food business are the major critical dependencies for the business, therefore priority has to be bestowed upon them in the continuity plan to protect business from collapsing in case of a disaster affecting its critical services. The business does a risk assessment that help in identifying the risks possible, this helps in protecting the critical services of the business in the long run to ensure continuity (Järveläinen 2013). The risk assessment for the business is reviewed continuously to possibly locate any case of risks that may affect the critical services of our business; assessment helps in analyzing the situation that the business may face in the long run. Strategies for recovering and maintaining critical dependence. In assessment, it is easy to monitor the critical dependence on whom we are able to acquire vital information concerning the market, these critical dependence are the part our business inputs, the management must therefore be able to deal with them in an appropriate manner of negotiation and agreements (Snedaker 2013). This can be done through things like memorandum of understanding, service level and also documentation of the agreements that may exist between the management and the outside sources of information to the business, this is vital to the business continuity plan. For a business to operate effectively, it has to rely on a strong availability of resources. As seen for the business to protect its critical services, it has to rely on outside sources and other sources of information which act as the inputs, the work of the plan management is to ensure appropriate management of the inputs through adequate negotiation to reach the agreement that both will understand to be able specifically maintain the critical dependence and recover those who are lost (Sahebjamnia, et al., 2015). Other methods of ensuring this is through adequate business partnership agreement between the business and the outside sources, this provide equality and thus the business can get hold of their outside input for long periods. Also the contract of business continuity plan should be availed to the critical dependence, in the bid to recovery; the strategies used by the business must be supportive of the business structure and operations. Identifying members of a crisis planning team Damage control is the main purpose of the team chosen for crisis planning in the business. the team selected thus should posses good experience and ability to control the business operations back to where the business was for continuity, the people chosen should be merited for the job at hand as it is not an easy task, they are chosen particularly to prepare the business for the inevitable threats that occurs in the process of operations for the foreseeable future (Belbin 2012). The members of the team should be carefully identified to make an effective crisis planning team; in selection of this team certain qualities need to be taken into consideration. Such qualities include adequate knowledge about the business, that is the people selected to form the team should have good knowledge of the business, this will ensure that this individuals knows the purpose of the business and all the activities undertaken, the individuals will also be able to know the effects of the crisis to the business and how it can impact negatively on the business operations (Lerbinger 2012). Knowing the business helps in finding out the best methods of handling the crisis in case it has occurred. To manage a crisis is a team effort. The planning team members should be in a position to relate well with each member and maintain good working relationship with the business management for the process of crisis control to be effectively handled in case of tight circumstances (Coombs 2014). The team should be able to know who to engage in consultation when solving the crisis. A good crisis team should have members who are highly communicative, this is the key towards solution and thus the members constituting the crisis planning team should be in position to communicate to one another and even to the entire business fraternity for adequate crisis stabilization. The members should be devoted to the business to ensure complete focus towards drawing up a plan that will guide the business to overcome any disaster that may affect its operations. Communication should be done to all the levels in the business to ensure all members involved in the business know the impacts that the crisis may cause the business operations (Coombs 2014). The planning team should not be selected in a rush; care should be taken as they are the crucial part of the business in occurrence of a crisis. The business needs a team that can come up with the best crisis plan that can be able to handle disaster; the plan should be well implemented with the help of this team to ensure continuity of the business in times of a crisis (Coldwell et al., 2012). The crisis plan for the unity fast food is chosen on the qualities discussed above; this is with an aim of handling crisis that may pose as a challenge to the continuity of the business in the long term. Effective methodology for triggering the plan To plan effectively for the crisis, it is important for the business to understand the purpose of formulating the plan (Buchanan & Denyer 2013). Since the unity fast food business is small, it does not have enough resources to cope easily in times of crisis, thus it is important for this type of business to formulate an effective plan that can help protect the business it from the impacts of possible crisis like sickness and potential business failure due to hard economic times. Thus the best methods carried in the plan for this business, is identifying the possible crisis like sickness and lack of capital that may affect the business, identifying the methods of being able to minimize the risks in of the crisis occurring, setting out the reaction that the business may have towards solving out the crisis to ensure business continuity, and then the plan is tested to check whether it can work in case of a crisis (Ulmer, et al., 2013). The business continuity plan will help unity business in being able to cope up with a crisis more easily and be able to avoid disruption that may be caused to the operations and even to the potential customers. The plan will assure the customers and the management that the business the business is ready to cope up with anything that might come on the way in the bid to disrupt its operations; this will give the business absolute advantage over the potential competitors in the market. The occurrence of a crisis is unforeseen event but can be predicted. Unity fast food business has to strongly rely on the plan outlined and make sure it has the ability to survive in case of the crisis. The business has the potential to continue with operation considering the kind of plan that is put in place. The immediate action of the plan is necessary for the business as it will counter the crisis before affecting its operations. The crisis planning should be taken serious as the occurrence of a disaster may affect the financial capacity considering unity is a small business with little capacity to cope up in crisis without an effective plan (Buchanan & Denyer 2013). References Belbin, R.M., 2012. Management teams. Routledge. Buchanan, D.A. and Denyer, D., 2013. Researching tomorrow's crisis: methodological innovations and wider implications. International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(2), pp.205-224. Coldwell, D.A.L., Joosub, T. and Papageorgiou, E., 2012. Responsible leadership in organizational crises: An analysis of the effects of public perceptions of selected SA business organizations’ reputations. Journal of business ethics, 109(2), pp.133-144. Coombs, W.T., 2014. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding: Planning, Managing, and Responding. Sage Publications. Healy, P. and Palepu, K., 2012. Business Analysis Valuation: Using Financial Statements. Cengage Learning. Järveläinen, J., 2013. IT incidents and business impacts: Validating a framework for continuity management in information systems. International Journal of Information Management, 33(3), pp.583-590. Lerbinger, O., 2012. The crisis manager. Routledge. Myers, M.D., 2013. Qualitative research in business and management. Sage. Sahebjamnia, N., Torabi, S.A. and Mansouri, S.A., 2015. Integrated business continuity and disaster recovery planning: Towards organizational resilience. European Journal of Operational Research, 242(1), pp.261-273. Sharma, P., Chrisman, J.J. and Chua, J.H. eds., 2012. A review and annotated bibliography of family business studies. Springer Science & Business Media. Snedaker, S., 2013. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning for IT professionals. Newnes. Ulmer, R.R., Sellnow, T.L. and Seeger, M.W., 2013. Effective crisis communication: Moving from crisis to opportunity. Sage Publications. Read More