Tips for Increasing Your Business Resiliency and Continuity Today

Featured article by Kellie Byrnes, Independent technology Author

When it comes to running a venture, not enough people think about business resiliency and continuity. This is the ability of an organization to adapt quickly to disruptions of normal functions.

Resilient businesses are those that are able to maintain continuous business operations and to safeguard their people, brand equity and assets, even if issues (such as IT disasters, cyberattacks, fires, floods and the like) occur.

Implementing strategies for continuous management ensures companies are able to avoid costly downtimes as much as possible, and it helps to reduce vulnerabilities and risk and make it possible to continue operations even in the face of additional, unexpected breaches of any kind.

Read on for some tips you can follow to increase your business resiliency and continuity management today and ensure your venture doesn’t crash and burn because of a lack of planning and preparation.

Identify the Most Important Business Functions

You need to identify the most important business functions for your venture. Ask yourself, what are the organization’s crucial processes, which if halted will cause huge issues? Take a look at factors in all areas of operations, but particularly tech ones.

It helps to think in terms of a list the includes lots of P-words: people, processes, providers, premises, performance, preparation and the profile of your venture. Once you’re clear on what all the most essential factors are in your business, you can carefully work to reduce threats to them and put in place plans for what’s to happen if they’re suddenly compromised.

Understand Your Venture’s Weak Spots

Similarly, you also need to analyze business environments and make sure you understand where the various weak spots for your organization lie. For instance, where is the business vulnerable, and how might hackers take advantages of these areas, or what would be at risk first if your website crashed or your servers malfunctioned?

Consider external but related factors. For instance, what would happen if a problem occurred but your suppliers or other stakeholders were unable to adhere to the continuity plans you designed? By conducting risk assessments and educating yourself on the various potential threats to your organization’s processes, you will understand what you need to change or update ASAP and be able to get ahead of problems.

Put Everything in Writing and Share

Of course, there’s no point in creating a business continuity plan and doing what you can to build your organization’s resiliency if you don’t actually put down all the details in writing. Once you’ve had your business partners, board members, investors or other involved parties sign off on your plans, it’s time to document them. The plan shouldn’t be just in your head; instead, there should be rigorous data for other people to access and follow.

In particular, share your plan with your key employees, including the people who will have responsibilities noted in the plan as well as personnel on a broader level who may need to assist in bouncing back. Other stakeholders, internal or external, may also need to be given the plans to read over and ask questions about. For instance, suppliers and contractors could need to get involved.

It’s important to make your plans as easy to execute as possible. Avoid being disorganized or using confusing language since the plan needs to be useful and capable of execution in a timely manner. Make it simple for others to understand and adhere to by providing checklists or step-by-step instructions that outline, in order and in detail, exactly what needs to be done. It pays to add in visual aids since these help to demonstrate necessary actions. For example, include graphs, flow charts, diagrams, infographics and the like.

Provide Training for Your Staff Members

It’s also vital that you provide training for your staff members and other relevant parties, so everyone who will play a part in executing the plan knows how to do their part quickly and correctly. Often you’ll realize that a number of your workers will need to be in charge of tasks way beyond the usual responsibilities of their day-to-day jobs.

As such, if you don’t educate them on what’s required of them, there could be huge knowledge gaps, and things won’t go to plan if an emergency arises. Training is imperative. It is also wise to run some mock scenarios, so everyone can get some practice in; plus, this gives you a chance to really test out the plan you’ve created.

About the Author

Kellie Byrnes is a freelance writer who has been working in the industry for five-plus years. She has created content for companies around the globe, from the USA and Canada to the United Kingdom and Australia. Kellie understands the ups and downs of being self-employed and running a small business, and does her best to stay up-to-date on relevant tech trends and developments. You can connect with Kellie online. Her website is www.KellieByrnes.com.