Developing a Business Continuity Plan

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The importance of ethical and cultural considerations relevant to the development of a business continuity plan.

1. Identify limiting resources

CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS:

A business continuity plan is the logistical plan which is the result of the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an organization will recover and restore partially or completely interrupted critical or urgent functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption.

Business continuity management aims to proactively manage all business processes, assets, facilities, supply chains and human resources to ensure that, as far as is feasible, the business will always function at its highest capacity.

However, there is a major obstruction in many organizations as they develop their business continuity plans - corporate culture. Business continuity planning and management must be more than a program and it must be deeply embedded into the corporate psyche of all the employees in order that it becomes truly effective. Everyone in the organization must become risk aware and employees must see the management and reporting of the risks under their control as their personal responsibility. To do this, the business continuity manager must be an advocate of change. Steps in change management process:

1. Understand the general culture of the company by researching into company culture theory and real attitudes within the company.
2. Determine the vision where the organization currently stands and where it should be taken to. Once cannot achieve culture change unless he/she knows where he/she is heading.
3. Once clear where to go, create a roadmap and plan how to get the organization to where it should be. A defined strategy is required and it requires hard work.

The following should also be considered:

1. Senior management must be on-board and they must lead by example and must model the business continuity/risk aware culture that is being created.
2. Extensive training and awareness work needs to be carried out and employees need to understand the reasons behind the change, what it can do for them and they need to understand that these changes will safeguard their jobs and their future.
3. Managers must take responsibility for selling the culture changes and for ensuring that the daily requirements of the new risk-aware culture are met.
4. The HR department is very important in helping out. They need to understand and be a part of the training and awareness programs. When the culture is established, HR will need to take responsibility for building risk awareness and responsiveness into HR policies, job descriptions, etc.
5. There must be enforcement once the new culture is established. For those who consistently fail to manage and report risks, a sanction must be prepared for them.

An organization must consider culture and flexibility in the early stages of creating the business continuity plan as this may mean different things to different people. Once the plan has been developed, employees must be made aware of its contents, its roles, responsibilities and be taught on how to use it. It is at this point that the importance of continuity ...