Technology Tip
Dave Pelland has extensive experience covering the business use of technology, networking and communications tools by companies of all sizes. Dave's editorial and corporate experience includes more than 10 years editing an electronic technology and communications industry newsletter for a global professional services firm.

Developing Small Business Continuity Plans

Developing Small Business Continuity Plans

As the global pandemic taught us, advance planning is critical in responding to unexpected events effectively and outlining measures that could potentially save a small business from a natural disaster or other outage.

Business continuity planning is a process for identifying potential risks to an organization.

Steps the company should take to prevent or respond to disruptions, and how to maintain effective communication during and immediately after any outage.

Small businesses face potential disruptions from natural disasters, cyberattacks and data breaches, government shutdowns, and other potential unplanned events and incidents.

Unfortunately, severe weather events and cyberattacks only seem to be increasing, making it important for companies of all sizes to establish continuity plans and to update existing plans at least annually as circumstances and team members change.

A lot of companies confuse continuity planning with disaster recovery plans. While those are also critical to surviving disruptions, disaster recovery plans focus more on systems and technology in the immediate aftermath of a disruption.

Continuity plans address this immediate need, but also include medium-term steps for the days and weeks after a disruption and list critical steps and resources the small business needs to maintain its operations.

Identify Risks and Resources

A critical step in business continuity planning is reviewing your operations to identify what can go wrong. Events such as fires, floods, utility disruptions, and similar disruptions will likely top the list, but you should also include data breaches and other tech-related incidents.

Depending on your business and its operations, this may mean examining the exterior of your facilities and identifying any areas that may be damaged during severe weather. It may also mean evaluating the software your company relies on daily and making any necessary updates.

As you identify potential risks, you also need to think about the potential effects on your business operations if one of these disruptions occurs. The impacts may be operational, including your ability to serve customers, or financial from a loss of revenue. Understanding the potential effects can help you prioritize the risks you should try to mitigate or restore.

This step will help you identify:

  • Prevention strategies and steps you can take before a potential disaster
  • Response strategies for immediately after a disaster
  • Recovery strategies for resuming operations

Reviewing your company’s operations can also reveal potential process improvements that save time and increase efficiency. Examining what you do, for instance, can lead to questions such as "why do we do this?" or "why do we do this this way?", and inspire improvements.

Communications are another important aspect of business continuity, so your plan should include contact information for key team members and identify who is responsible for reaching out to key stakeholders such as customers and suppliers.

Backing Up Data

A detailed review of your company’s technology infrastructure should also include factors such as making sure any applications are up to date, data is backed up, and that team members can access your systems and data remotely in case you lose access to your primary facility.

As data breaches and ransomware attack increase in frequency and severity, it is vital to invest in cloud-based systems that routinely back up data to remote servers so you can access and restore vital customer and financial in the event of a breach or equipment loss.

Thinking through these risks when your business is relatively calm will help you respond effectively if the need arises.


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