Q: Is there a simple way to describe Business Continuity Planning?
A: Business Continuity Planning refers to maintaining business functions or quickly resuming them in the event of a major disruption such as a fire, tornado, illness, Internet/Intranet hacking, or any other disturbance affecting your campus. If your school has a Crisis Plan, your Business Continuity Plan (BC) is likely to be part of that.
Whereas a Crisis Plan is a complete document addressing topics ranging from natural disasters to hiring mishaps, your BC plan is more narrowly focused, answering the question, "How can we remain operational, or re-open as quickly as possible if [insert event] happened?" Preparing for events is the objective to having a complete BC plan which addresses:
- Identifying critical business functions (e.g., holding classes)
- Determining what might interrupt these functions (fire, flood, intruder)
- Establishing protocols to help prevent or mitigate the preventable from occurring
The main objective of a BC plan is to remain operational (open).
When constructing your BC plan, it’s a good opportunity to evaluate your school’s processes and procedures. For instance, during the process, you may discover that your school isn’t prepared to conduct temporary online classes, (or your data needs a more robust backup process). You want to be able to answer the following questions.
1) What redundancies (such as, equipment, people, data, transportation vehicles, IT, phone and other communication equipment, etc.), would be needed to keep the school running (or get it up and running quickly)?
2) Where would we conduct our “business” if some or all of our buildings are damaged?
3) What are our solutions (e.g., can any functions be performed from home)?
Having a BC plan can help focus your school’s goals and planning for the future. If properly done, it helps prevent (or at least reduce), down time in the event of an untoward event. Outcomes include reduced chance of lost income, injury property damage, lost students, etc. It can even present an opportunity to enhance your reputation (even though a bad thing happened) because you thought ahead and had a plan!
Ask ISM’s Risk Management Expert a question. We respect your privacy—your name and your school will remain anonymous.
