Is a good Business Continuity Plan needed?
In the modern world, where economic changes are fast paced, any incident which impacts the business by putting it out of action could be disastrous. Competitors will jump at the chance and will muscle in on an opportunity, given to them by default. Therefore, a primal business need is a sound Business Continuity Plan. A Business Continuity Plan will also help meet compliance criteria as well as satisfy stakeholder demands. However, to have a sound, practical Business Continuity Plan, which can be updated in real-time and covers all aspects of the business, requires the use of a good Business Continuity Plan software.
Does Business Continuity Plan Software provide a solution to a BCP?
In the event of a disaster, a good Business Continuity Plan software helps a business to formulate a BCP, which is effective in switching over from normal operational mode to the BCP mode seamlessly. It will help in minimizing business disruptions, which will go a long way in retaining customer and stakeholder confidence in the business. When downtime is reduced, the loss of revenue will be minimal and the impact on the bottom line of the businesses balance sheet will be negligible.
The characteristics of good Business Continuity Plan software.
- Effectively monitors and manages Business Continuity needs
- Takes into account organizational set-up and ties it into the Business Continuity Management (BCM) process
- Uses Mean Time to Detect, RPO and RTO to define the BCM process steps
- Helps in making a Business Impact Analysis
- Helps in creating a risk register
- Helps strengthen the BCM process development
- Identifies preventive controls
- Identifies the first responders in the organization
- Lays out the communication plan
- Help to carry out testing of BCM plan, its maintenance and periodic review/updates
- Helps developing test objectives to check effectiveness of Business Continuity Management (BCM) plan
- Helps identify problems in the plan, so that remedial measures can be taken
- Helps with proper training of personnel
- It helps the organization get certification from ISO, DRII, and FFIEC etc.
- Enables internal audit of the entire BCM plan so that it can be fine tuned on a real time basis
- Enables Managers to get DR requirements in the shortest possible time
- Enables damage assessments so that Managers can take immediate corrective action
- Helps activate the Disaster Recovery (DR) plan and also to begin the recovery process such as shifting to alternate sites, systems etc.
- Helps the organization assess the current situation in real-time
- Helps the organization to get in touch with government and disaster relief agencies
- Helps get real-time weather updates
- Helps monitor the power situation
- Helps get further inputs from Social Media
The Business Continuity Plan software has many more advantages. By using this software, Managers are adding a valuable tool in their arsenal, to enable a quick response to the disaster as well as ensure Business Continuity. Most software available in the market can be adapted to the requirements of a particular business and this flexibility is an added plus point.
Disasters
