Business Resilience Planning

In the context of today's fast globalizing businessas well as initiating the business continuity process.
landscape and the unpredictable terrorismIt is important to note that emergencies may
happening around us, a Business Resilience Plan isinvolve both physical and non-physical threats to
a critical business requirement to preserve yourbusiness operations. The purpose of the Crisis
critical business processes in order to maintainManagement phase is to ensure:
functionality and ensured continued profitability.- Steps necessary to safeguard the welfare of
The Business Resilience Planning in simplified terms,the colleagues are taken
must minimally fulfill two major objectives, namely- Determination of the extent of the incident is
to enable data integrity & data restorationaccurate
(to ensure continuance of business) as well as- Appropriate individuals are assembled into
avoid or reduces the loss of human lives.response teams to carry out the required actions
The following outlines the three phases of- Effective communication is made to colleagues
Business Resilience Plan. This is a framework- External communications are properly controlled
which is not exhaustive and the scope of which- Appropriate operating strategies are
may be adapted to suit your business model.implemented
There are three phases in the recovery process,Business Continuity plan provides each functional
namely the Emergency Response phase, Crisisand line-of-business department with a framework
Management phase as well as Business Continuityon which to resume critical business processes if
Planning.an incident disrupts their normal work location and
Emergency Response Plan addresses thethe resources in it are not accessible. The
procedures required to respond immediately torespective department's business continuity plans
any incident that may jeopardize the safety ofare closely coordinated and supported by the local
our colleagues, disrupt daily operations or bringmanagement support staff for such areas as
unwarranted external scrutiny to the company.technology and office administrative assistance in
The onus lies on the company to conduct itselfestablishing a continuous working environment.
with the highest regard for the safety and healthThis phase addresses the inaccessibility of the
of its colleagues and to protect and preserve itsnormal work location and its contents. These plans
property. The purpose of the Emergencyshould provide for a worst-case loss scenario.
Response phase is to provide guidelines to:Incidents that result in lesser consequences will be
- Ensure the safety and health of colleaguesmanaged by scaling down the relevant parts of
- Quickly identify and respond to incidents thatthe plans.
may arise at or near the officeThe purpose of this phase is to ensure that
- Help evacuate the building in an orderly manner,necessary business conducted at a particular
if necessarylocation can be recovered within reasonable
- Assess any damage or impact of a situationtimeframes and to acceptable levels, to ensure
- Ascertain the level of containment required toour ability to support our clients in an appropriate
limit damage to facilities and equipmentmanner.
- Identify and apply the necessary emergencyThese efforts must be performed in conjunction
activitieswith the local office's Infrastructure Recovery
- Coordinate with local emergency services andteams which will include facilities and technology.
authoritiesOnce space has been identified and secured, the
Crisis Management allows you to have a processfitting out process will take place (i.e. furniture,
for assessing crisis incidents and managing themtelephony, network, LAN infrastructure, etc.).