Business Continuity Plan – Strategy to Face Potential Disasters and Disaster Recovery

 Preparing for the worst scenario is one of the most important things a company needs to do to ensure its business safety. As such, a business continuity plan (BCP) is a strategy that a company can do to prevent business threats. The threats the company might have to face during its business tenure are usually varied in nature. Disruption of the supply chain, damage to vital infrastructure, loss of the employees’ lives during work, and many others are some of the most notable examples that can lead to disastrous results. Therefore, what is a BCP, and how is it related to disaster recovery attempts? 

According to its definition, BCP is the process of creating methods of disaster prevention and recovery to deal with threats to a particular company. Because it is preventive or curative, BCP can take place before or during a significant business disaster. BCP is closely related to a company’s capability to continue its business operations despite the disadvantageous situation because of these threats. As a part of a broader risk management ethos, business continuity plan seeks ways to return the company into the previous state before the threats take place.

Types of threats a company can face are as follows:

• Natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, heavy wind, etc.)
• Self-made disasters (road damage, traffic accidents, etc.)
• Human error (data miscalculation, lost properties, recklessness, etc.)
• Technological failures (electrical shutdown, leaking pipe, loss of internet network, etc.)
• Cyber-attacks (ransomware, phishing, etc.)

Because of the high potential of material losses from threats to a company, the company cannot underestimate the importance of a business continuity plan. Much like how risk management works, a company may not be able to prevent all possible aftermaths of business disasters. Even worse, insurance companies who are in charge of the company’s insurance may not cover all of the potential losses. What is worse is that customers are not part of the insurance company’s responsibility, so the company has to salvage whatever powers it has after the disaster occurred.

Therefore, a business continuity plan is a form of a more specified type of insurance for the company from within itself. BCP covers all of the potential losses that cannot be replaced with a typical insurance plan, so the company needs to devise its strategy. In doing so, the company will not have to suffer extensive financial losses from the damage repair process.

What is more important is that the business continuity plan can ensure the company’s performance even in the middle of a disruption. Once a potentially disruptive threat cannot be avoided, all the company can do is to minimize the potential losses from that disaster. Here are some things about why BCP is essential and how it can benefit the company:  

• Maintaining the employees’ morale 

Having a contingency plan during a disaster can boost and maintain the employees’ spirits in continuing their work. This will prevent a drastic drop in the staffs’ morale whenever an emergency occurs.

• Protecting the company’s reputation 

A well-devised BCP can increase the resilience level of the company that implements it. The continuity plan will ensure the company’s readiness in dealing with all kinds of possible threats. In turn, this will boost the company’s reputation and fame in dealing with challenging business situations and attract potential colleagues.

• Increasing the company’s readiness 

A company can draw many benefits if it has a well-planned BCP to prevent future threats. As the company deals with multiple threats consecutively, the company now knows what it needs to do with each of these threats. Therefore, by the time similar threats happen again, the company already has plans to deal with them beforehand.

As a result, a business continuity plan seeks to do whatever it takes to mitigate all consequences of harmful threats. Usually, people tend to conflate the concept of a BCP and a disaster recovery plan (DRP) because of the similar goals between them. However, they are not precisely identical. A disaster recovery plan is a subset of BCP that deals explicitly with technical aspects, such as the recovery of information network and resources. DRP’s particular purpose differs from that of a BCP in general, as BCP deals with multiple kinds of threats. 

BCP comes off as a plan that deals with a higher number of threats, in this regard. On the other hand, a disaster recovery plan is useful for a company that wants to specify its needs. Usually, people will focus their needs to recover essential technology materials through a disaster recovery plan. While the company also cannot underestimate the severity of other threats, it needs to conjure up a DRP if it wants to recover as many technical features as possible.

While a disaster recovery plan is not strictly limited to IT-related problems, it is usually used extensively by many company’s IT department. However, other departments can also implement the disaster recovery plan when necessary. More specifically, different departments can continue their business operations under the guidance of both BCP and DRP as well. Because BCP documents and covers a broader array of things that the company needs to pay attention to during a disaster, a DRP will complement it.

Despite the seemingly different purposes between BCP and DRP, both are nonetheless vital for a company’s business operations. Without a contingency plan to deal with numerous threats, the company will be rendered as ineffective in dealing with its problems. Hence, the company will be a lot more effective if it already has a business continuity plan to implement disaster recovery efforts to salvage everything during a disaster.

Ensure your business continuity with aCloud. AdIns Cloud Indonesia Service Provider, aCloud Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) help you to prepare your IT Infrastructure when inevitable disaster strikes.