6 Benefits of business continuity planning

Unforeseen events like typhoons, system failures, or cyberattacks can strike at any time, which can make it difficult or even impossible for you to carry out day-to-day business activities. Fortunately, business continuity planning (BCP) can minimize such disruptions and ensure that your company can continue operating at least at a minimal level during an emergency.

What is business continuity planning?

BCP involves developing a comprehensive strategy for mitigating any risk (e.g., natural disaster, power outage) that could disrupt your operations. This strategy includes protocols for protecting your company’s assets and ensuring that your systems can get up and running again following a disaster.

A business continuity plan should include the following details:

  • Various risks and their potential impact on the company
  • Acceptable levels of risk
  • Safeguards that minimize the chances of a disaster happening
  • Backup and disaster recovery measures

Why should companies have a business continuity plan?

Companies can enjoy the following benefits when they leverage BCP.

1. Reduced downtime

When disasters happen, your company may suffer unplanned downtime, which can slow down or completely shut down your operations. This often leads to catastrophic revenue loss. In fact, the average downtime costs small companies $425 per minute, while it’s $9,000 per minute for large organizations.

Having a BCP that lays out the steps you need to get your operations up and running again allows you to minimize downtime.

2. Increased productivity

When your IT systems are down, your employees can’t access the applications and resources they need to do their jobs. While offline solutions may mitigate the risks of downtime, these may not have the functions necessary to perform certain tasks. In addition, some staff may feel stressed since they can’t get any work done, which may lower their morale and snowball into a long-term dip in productivity.

By having a business continuity plan, you can minimize the amount of time your employees are not able to work, which can improve overall productivity.

3. Improved customer satisfaction

In today’s competitive market, you constantly need to make your customers happy. If downtime prevents you from serving your customers, they may become frustrated and take their business elsewhere. This can damage your reputation and make it difficult for you to attract new customers.

BCP minimizes the impact of a disaster on your customer service, enabling you to keep your customers satisfied.

4. Reduced risk of data loss

In business, data loss is one of the most common consequences of a disaster. This could entail losing important financial records, customer data, employee information, or other types of business-critical data. Losing such data can have a devastating impact on your business, or worse, bring your operations to a complete halt.

A BCP enables you to create data backup and recovery protocols, reducing the risk of data loss.

5. Regulatory compliance

Many government-mandated privacy and security regulations require maintaining certain records for a minimum time period. For example, healthcare organizations and other covered entities must keep all records of policies, procedures, or assessments done to comply with HIPAA, for at least six years after their creation date. If you lose such records for any reason, your company could be subject to litigation or substantial fines. BCP minimizes the chances of that happening since it involves implementing data loss prevention and recovery measures.

6. Peace of mind

Having a business continuity plan gives you peace of mind knowing that your company is prepared for any eventuality. Rather than worrying about what could happen, you can focus on running your business and growing your bottom line.

To enjoy these benefits, you need to work with a business continuity expert like SpectrumWise. We’ll conduct an in-depth risk assessment first so we can tailor for your business a step-by-step guide for resuming normal operations. Schedule a consultation with us today.

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