Establishing a Business Continuity Plan
If you were to explain a complicated plan by speech, others may have a hard time following. A well-documented plan should simplify a complicated plan, because of how we tend to visualise concepts, planning can help clarify the steps, process and objectives. It is also efficient at organising others into the plan since it shouldn’t be too hard to replicate it.
If implemented correctly, planning will reduce time and effort required in achieving the goal.
Cash Flow
Cash flow is a fundamental part of business survival, the ability to pay expenses will depend on how well cash flow intake is maintained. Planning for alternative sources of cash flow will be required when the primary source is unavailable. Forecasting cash flow will help decision making when applying for alternatives such as bank loans or insurance pay-out amounts.
Threat assessment
Internal threats
An example of this is losing an employee who is vital to your business operations. Perhaps that person is not replaceable because others within the organization do not possess the necessary training. You may want to think about training others or rotating responsibilities to diversify the experience within your employees. This would be a form of internal preparedness. Preparation against threats should be catered to the threat. Such that you wouldn’t install sprinklers in preparation for flooding
External threats
External threats are forces outside of your business; you would likely associate them with environmental disasters. However, they also include market forces, such as trends or recessions that could directly affect your logistics, supplies and sales
Fayol’s Management model
In business management, planning is used extensively within every sector of an organisation. The functions of management by Fayol theorises that management can be processed into.
- Planning – Planning should in advance decide how the plan should proceed, what actions and resources are required and who does what. The objective of the plan should be mapped out.
- Organising – Allocating both human and non-human resources before the plan is carried out.
- Commanding – Strengths and weaknesses of members are assessed and allocated where they are needed, providing leadership and a sense of direction.
- Coordinating – Communication with members are maintained and organisational hierarchy is considered for responsibilities.
- Controlling – Monitoring and correcting deviations from the plan. Ensure the result meets objective
Fayol’s model outlines the managerial elements that managers should undertake, strictly within the context of planning.
Meanwhile business resilience stages (preparedness, protection, response and recovery) are relative to whether a disruption has occurred or not. In other words, it is to simplify the components of what is needed to build resilience relative to what to do before, during and after. Fayol’s model should be utilised for business continuity planning and overall help build business resilience.
Fayol’s model should be utilised for business continuity planning{link} and overall help build business resilience.
Other things to consider
To make things manageable, multiple plans may be required to describe different situations.
It is not unheard-of for businesses to have multiple plans for different situations, so that they can react quickly. Remember to either spend the time now and plan for it, or panic trying to figure out what to do.
Business resiliency is an opportunity to work on the business.