Business Continuity Planning or Business Interruption Planning (BIP)
BusinessDictionary.com defines Business Continuity Planning (BCP) as:
Task of identifying. developing. acquiring. documenting, and testing procedures and resources that will ensure continuity of a firm's key oeprations in the event of anaccident, disaster, mini-disaster, emergency, and/or threat. It involves:
(1) risk mitigation planning (reducing possibility of the occurence of adverse events)
and
(2) business recovery planing (ensuring continued operation in the aftermath of a
disaster) <Pinnacle Business Concepts includes mini-disasters in this definition>
BusinessDictionary.com defines Business Interruption as:
Anticipated (such as due to a strike) or unanticipated (such as due to a power
failure) disruption of the normal operations of firm.
The Pinnacle Business Concepts BIP is a planned process or set of processes to follow in the event of a Business Interruption, e.g. supply chain interruption. A complete plan includes a process for alternative ways of assuring each of the twelve key business processes function at an acceptable level given a disaster or mini-disaster that adversely impacts the operation of the process. For example it may be the case that for a given entity the process for “Manage Financial and Physical Resources” includes short-term borrowing during particular segments of the business cycle and that through National Economic Impacts this borrowing becomes unavailable. What then is the alternative process for assuring employees are paid, rent is paid, utilities are paid, etc.? It is possible that an organization is highly dependent on their IT systems for company operating functionality (financial services industry for example). If terrorist of an act of God destroys our IT facility and we loose key people in the process, how do we continue to operate? The flow chart below illustrates a simplified Financial causal process chart with a simplified alternative process (in red) for a business interruption. A completed process chart would be much more complex.
Pinnacle Business Concepts will assist you in developing causally linked process flow charts for each of your twelve business processes and decision domains with drill down granularity as deep as you want to take it. The completed document will enable your organization to complete an accurate and thorough Business Impact Analysis (BIA). This can be accomplished as one major project or as a pilot and a series of smaller projects in a generational plan. All of our solutions include a financial business case and cost/benefit analysis.
