12 Reasons to Implement a BCP

1. Demonstration by senior management and board of due diligence

2. Financial services authority requirements

3. Protect shareholders and other stakeholders
4. Protect brand and reputation
5. Competitive advantage in tender situations
6. Insurance requirements - property insurance, product recall insurance
7. To protect production and long term business
8. Corporate manslaughter act
9. Due diligence: Sale of company – implemented BCP looks favourable
10. Expansion to new facility. BCP required for new site
11. BRC Issue 6 requires BCP (clause 3.11.1)
12. Specific retailer standards

Business continuity planning - Overview

Our specialist consultants will work with you to assist you in developing your business continuity plans including effective procedures for specific crisis types, e.g. flood, fire, loss of a key supplier, IT failure, fatal accident, mass absenteeism, etc. The RQA consultant will spend time with individuals within your company to best understand the issues and current crisis plans (if any); looking for best practice as well as gaps to fill. The consultant will then remotely start to develop the business continuity plans (BCP) whilst keeping in regular contact with the appointed contact person within your company. 

There will be the need for further communication for the consultant to ensure that the business continuity plans that they develop are completely in line with your business. Once a draft BCP is completed the RQA consultant will send it to you for review.  The consultant will also highlight areas that need additional attention and data / information. After further discussion, a final plan will be issued by you.

Business continuity planning - Process

As a first step towards developing effective business continuity plans one or more meetings will take place between the RQA consultant and key members of your crisis management team.  The first meeting will concentrate upon compiling a risk profile of 5 - 12 specific crises that could affect your business and classify them in accordance to severity and likelihood.  

In addition to the risk profiling, the consultant will work with your team to develop a business impact analysis.  This will identify specific processes or equipment or business functions that would cause significant business continuity issues if they failed or did not perform as expected. Factors such as down time impact, ability to replace, outsourcing, related timescales and costs will be included in a concise but effective matrix. 

The business continuity plans will take the form of a series of procedures for dealing with each crisis identified in the risk profiling exercise.  Each will be a practical tool that is easy to follow and considers notification, escalation and communication with an accompanying action plan.

Business continuity training and exercises

It is very important to test your business continuity plans, your team and company systems once they have been completed and then annually. RQA’s test formats include: “incident run through”, “table top simulation”, “live exercise with emergency services”.

“Incident run through”

The RQA consultant would run through a specific incident type and assess your business continuity plans, related systems and capability for incident management and business continuity.  A report will be compiled that will highlight strengths and weaknesses in the process from incident start, through crisis management and business continuity.

“Table top simulation”

The RQA consultant will develop a scenario with input from a member of your team. This will relate to one of your crisis types identified in your risk profiling. Your team (based in your board room or located remotely) will be fed information from the consultant regarding a serious incident, followed by various “injects” that escalate the scale as time goes on. 

On completion of all simulations and exercises, a full report will be prepared highlighting findings from the exercise with recommendations for further developments of plans and capability.