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How a Business Continuity Plan Saved the Day for These Companies

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For some companies, downtime or natural disasters spell the end of their operations. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Below, we take a look at some business continuity successes, and what other companies can learn from their stories.

What is business continuity planning?

Also referred to as contingency planning, business continuity planning is all about a company’s ability to bounce back after an incident causes downtime. In other words, it’s how well a business adapts to changing circumstances beyond its control. 

Business continuity planning is important because recovering from downtime is a costly endeavor. In fact, up to 60 percent of small businesses fail to reopen after downtime, whether as a result of natural disasters, employee error, or cyber crime, because the costs are simply too high to recover from. 

How, then, do successful businesses rise above these challenges and stay operational? Let’s take a look at some examples.

Business continuity planning saved these companies

In no particular order, here are three companies that credit business continuity planning with saving their operations. 

1. Cupcake Kitchen

Houston-based bakery Cupcake Kitchen lost access to its premises for around three weeks after a hurricane caused severe water damage. The company lost multiple appliances and perishable goods to a total loss of around $30,000.00. 

The owner actively kept her customers notified on social media about what was happening and the steps she was taking to get the bakery up and running again. A few months later, revenue returned to 80 percent of pre-hurricane levels. 

The key point here is that, as a local business, the owner found a way to connect to her clients and ensure they understood that the kitchen would open again. She turned an obstacle–picking a new location for her bakery–into an opportunity, which is a hallmark of a great contingency planning strategy. 

2. Georgia Power

Georgia Power, a major electricity supplier, lost a transformer to fire damage back in 2017. In response, Georgia Power aligned with a tech company to upgrade its transformer testing capabilities. 

The transformers now have sensors that record dissolved levels and instantly alert engineers if the levels exceed a safe amount. What’s more, the transformers generate gas readings at far more frequent intervals than before. 

What does this tell us? Well, Georgia Power instantly reacted to the crisis and took steps to prevent a similar incident from arising in the future. They learned from the failure and moved the company forward as a result. 

3. Gaille Media 

In 2017, Gaille Media, a small online marketing agency, lost its entire office space to hurricane damage. No one could enter the building for three months, and it wasn’t possible to salvage any hardware from inside. 

What happened? Surprisingly, it was business as usual at Gaille Media. The agency continued operating because it kept its business data, and all its backups, in the cloud. Employees worked remotely and provided their usual service to clients. The office didn’t reopen and the employees all now work remotely. 

The key takeaway is that Gaille Media had an effective contingency plan in place before disaster struck. They understood their core business processes and ensured that, whatever happened to their physical office space, they could access the data they needed to run their day-to-day operations. This is a great example of a truly proactive business continuity plan.

Conclusion

The good news is that it’s possible to keep your company afloat and active even when disaster strikes. As you can see from these company success stories, all it takes is some careful business continuity planning. For more information on business continuity planning and how the right strategy can save your company, contact us today.

6 Goals You Should Have in Mind When Creating Your BCP

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Are you prepared for the unexpected? Can you recover from an incident and be back online with minimal downtime? Without a complete business continuity plan, it will be hard to achieve this. 

Business continuity is really about what happens after the disaster or incident—it relates to the key steps you’ll take to deal with the impact of such an event. It has many aspects, including communication, getting critical business processes back online, and providing customers with a means to contact you.

There are many reasons why you need a business continuity plan. Downtime is costly. Disruption to business can have a lingering effect that may take considerable time to recover from.

“Good business continuity planning should look at the business as a whole — with a goal to support business resilience.” – Small Business Trends

But when you begin the process of creating a business continuity plan, what should your goals be? And how can you improve your strategy?

Goal one: document it

First, your business continuity plan should be documented. It seems easy enough, but many companies miss this step. So, consider this your first goal, which you don’t have to craft on your own. Partner with your managed IT services provider for guidance.

By documenting the process, everyone understands their role and responsibilities. There is a procedure to follow that takes into account all the mission-critical systems and how to best resume business as usual.

Goal two: identify roles

Determining who will be responsible for recovery internally, or how you’ll work with your third-party IT provider, is another vital objective. Document everyone’s individual role and, most importantly, how they can be reached in the event of an emergency.

Goal three: risk and impact assessment

A key part of a business continuity plan is a risk assessment or network audit to understand what threats are most likely to disrupt business. 

Consider how different types of events can hinder your business, and if different steps need to be made depending on the nature of the disruption. For example, dealing with a data breach due to malware and a power outage from a storm both need a recovery plan, but each plan will be different.

Goal four: determine the tools you need to recover quickly

Many of the tools you need for business continuity relate to off-site backups or other means to ensure that your data is secure. Redundancy features are also necessary, as are things like generators. But what about using technology in a different way, such as artificial intelligence (AI).

AI is becoming an important aspect of business continuity. There are several ways AI can impact business continuity. Those include predictive analytics and automation functionality.

Goal five: identify your critical data and assets

A business continuity plan should clearly identify where your critical data and assets reside. By documenting this, it’s much easier for recovery teams to act. This part of your plan should allow anyone to move forward with recovery efforts, should you or another team leader be unavailable.

Goal six: outline preventative measures

Determine what preventative measures your company is taking to prevent downtime. Much of the time, this includes advanced monitoring of your network for threats. It may also involve things like policies and protocols that you take every day to maintain security, both virtually and physically.

Focusing on these six goals can substantially strengthen your business continuity plan. If you have questions about augmenting your current plan or building a new one, we’re happy to help. 

Connect with us today to learn more.