Business Continuity Planning

Typical Scenarios

As regulatory requirements continue to grow our clients are increasingly aware of the need to identify and assess all underlying risks within their business. Furthermore, there is a need to evaluate operational processes and procedures, in order to understand the impact of such risks throughout the organisation. Consequently therefore our clients have determined that Business Continuity Plans must be developed and implemented to mitigate the impact of such risks or to reduce the probability of their occurrence.

Business Continuity Plans

‘A proactive, executive controlled crisis management and planning activity, driven by business requirements and constrained by common sense and prudence'

Nowadays all organisations should carefully consider the case for developing their Business Continuity Plans for managing the continuity of critical functions and recovery of the organisation from disruption. Good business continuity planning requires both generic and specific elements. A generic plan is a core plan that enables an organisation to respond to a wide range of possible scenarios, setting out the common elements of the response to any disruption. Within the framework of the generic plan, specific plans may be required in relation to business specific risks, sites or services. Specific plans provide a detailed set of arrangements designed to go beyond the generic arrangements when these are unlikely to prove sufficient.

Typical Due Diligence Project

CCL has a six-stage process embracing all aspects of Business Continuity Plan creation. The key stages are as follows:

  • Scope and Audit
  • Risk Analysis and Business Implications
  • The Project Charter
  • Business Continuity Plan Development
  • Establish Testing and Maintenance Programme
  • Initial Plan Testing and Implementation

A typical project would commence with a Health Check and would focus in principle upon:

  • Review existing Business Continuity Plans
  • Identify and assess the significant risks of an event occurring in any organisational area that would have a high impact upon the business
  • Produce a high level road map to enable the organisation to focus resources in the right areas and develop appropriate plans to address those risks
  • The identification of issues arising from the review and recommendations for their resolution

Benefits to be achieved through Business Continuity Planning:

  • Minimisation of potential economic loss
  • Decrease the potential exposure to risk
  • Reduce the probability of events occurring
  • Reduce disruptions to business operations
  • Ensure organisational stability
  • Provide an orderly recovery
  • Minimise insurance premiums
  • Reduce reliance on key individuals
  • Minimise legal liability
  • Minimise decision making lead times during a disastrous event
  • Facilitate effective co-ordination of recovery tasks