Building Organization Resilience

Recent and continuing events (i.e., pandemic, hurricanes, wildfires, tornados, widespread power outages, and earthquakes) have heightened concerns and drive interest in ensuring a higher degree of planning is being done to increase business resiliency in the face of such disruptive events. Business leaders need to make sure operations can bounce-back quickly and that safety & security of your staff, assets, and the community are part of your organization’s DNA. For businesses, emergency preparedness and business continuity planning can make the difference between staying in business and losing everything. Having a Business Continuity Management System in place aids business resiliency. Crafting a plan for Business Continuity (BCP) that includes a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), Incident Response / Crisis Emergency Management Plan with an evacuation scheme is one of the easiest ways to get traction in moving from basic to advanced preparedness and business continuity planning.

Where to start

Many organizations just want to cut to the chance (i.e., do the minimum possible to meet insurer, regulator, or board requirements. So to cut to the chase, you’ll find some beneficial Business Continuity Plan (BCP) template links below.

A BCP template is the simplest way to get started. There are numerous templates available that help you outline your strategies for keeping a business operational, at least on paper. There are many types of disruptions/emergencies such as extreme weather events, terrorism evacuations, pandemic, utility outages (e.g., power, water, or gas) – any that can disrupt your operations. Conceptually, the basic templates will help you identify some of your high business impact operational areas, assets, and help in crafting recovery strategies with the associated/assigned personnel. Business continuity templates are the easiest way to meet the most basic/minimal requirements that insurers are beginning to require. However, if you are serious and want to be more effective in ensuring your ability to plan, prepare, and respond to an event, a much deeper dive and concerted effort should be applied. The benefits of a comprehensive BCP approach are numerous.

BCPs prepared and tested from a comprehensive standpoint are more often 'done right' and include multiple analyses, the Business Continuity Plan, the IT Disaster Recovery Plan and the Crisis/Incident Management Plan, multiple support agreements, and other things that facilitate a comprehensive plan.

Sources to get you started today!

The following are excellent sources for more comprehensive guidance. Check out Smartsheets, ISO & FEMA - depending on the scope and scale of your organization.

Small to Medium and more

There are far too many free and low-cost templates on the internet to list here. However, very few offer the comprehensive depth & breadth of support that can be found with SmartSheet ( https://www.smartsheet.com/business-continuity-templates ) Is anything perfect, no; but it'll give you a jumpstart & a lot of insights!

Medium to Large Enterprises

The International Standards Organization (ISO) is an independent, non-governmental organization providing voluntary international standards to facilitate world trade by providing common standards and best practices among nations.

• ISO 22301:2019 - Security and resilience — Business continuity management systems — Requirements: https://www.iso.org/standard/75106.html
• ISO 22313:2020 - Security and resilience — Business continuity management systems — Guidance on the use of ISO 22301: https://www.iso.org/standard/75107.html

Government Agencies

US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides a template for the continuity of operations (COOP) / continuity of government (COG), which includes an overview of the organization’s approach to continuity of operations; detailing the organization, continuity and organization policies, and assigned tasks.

• COOP template: https://www.fema.gov/pdf/about/org/ncp/coop/continuity_plan_federal_d_a.pdf

Think about it - isn't it always better to be prepared?

Getting started

As organizations move toward the resumption of operations, one of the initial strategic planning tasks should be to update (or put-together) a business recovery and continuity plan that incorporates lessons-learned and forces the leadership and operations teams to push past immediate and short-term thinking and look into planning for multiple scenarios.

If you’re able to take a checkpoint during the current crisis - instead of waiting until it is over, the organization can begin creating an actionable medium-term plan for how the company should adapt its operations, and then be better prepared to outperform the competition (that chooses to wait to make adjustments.)

Get started on your plan update now! DGCpartners can help you get started, close any gaps in the current plan, and craft a roadmap for sustainable maintenance, training & testing, and peace of mind.

ABOUT

DGCpartners has deep experience in Resilience programs and applies expertise in support of customers having missions requiring robust continuity capability. Our approach involves understanding the People - Process - Technology - Culture and a workflow that includes ASSESS - STRATEGY - SELECTION - IMPLEMENTATION - OPTIMIZATION. The process provides a comprehensive suite of evaluation, optimization, testing, and exercise services focused on enhancing program effectiveness. The evaluation and analysis tools measure continuity program elements, e.g., strategies, plans, procedures, resources, risk management, alternate facilities, assistance agreements, and delegations of authority). DGCpartners also designs and delivers flexible, scaled continuity exercise support needed by customers to meet their specific requirements. 

Don Gleason has over 20 years of quality, program management, and performance excellence experience, including many years as a CIO. Don has managed multiple large high-value initiatives (government and commercial), programs and projects, and teams simultaneously, while continuously fostering creativity and innovation (across various industries.) - with a strong history and proven track record of turning around sub-optimal situations and equipping organizations with a competitive advantage through business process and technology innovation.

If you need help determining where to start, we will help you triage your situation, and together we can craft a management plan and make things happen. 

Give us a call today: 207.200.7650 so we can start the journey to sustaining successes.

To get you started on the right path that uses your team to assure a sustainable transformation & change management - Reach out to me here on LinkedIn, Twitter, or through DGCpartners.

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