Business Continuity Planning: Business Continuity Plan Template

TheBusiness Continuity Planning: Business Continuity Plan Template (BCP Template) is an excellent resource for those responsible for managing disasters and developing business continuity plans. The BCP Template (by Recoverics.com) is designed to help businesses prevent and manage the risk of disasters, protect the life and safety of staff and corporate assets, and plan the recovery of critical business areas. It is based on a risk assessment and business impact analysis process and ensures an organization can continue critical business functions, services, and operations during an emergency or disaster situation. The template contains a recommended structure, outline, and contents for developing a business continuity plan and it can be customized to suite your organization. It is comprised of the following components:

BC Plan Template - used to create the overall business continuity plan.

BC Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis Template (RB Template) - This template analyzes an organization's risks and expected impacts in the event of a disaster. A risk assessment helps to identify the risks of disaster and helps a company to manage and control the risks which are most likely to occur and those that have the greatest impact by implementing risk measures or risk controls. Some risk related questions your organization should ask are:

Which hazards and threats are most likely to occur?
What is the extent of the damage expected?
Are there any options to reduce these risks?

The BIA is a process of identifying operations that are critical to your organization, the time required to recover each operation (recovery time objectives), and the associated resources required to perform those operations. The BIA is a foundation from which a business continuity plan is developed.

Emergency Response Plan Template (ERP Template) - This template is used to create an emergency response plan (ERP). The emergency response plan is used to manage events such as explosions, airplane crashes, fire, loss of power, or damage from chemical spills. These events may be caused by a variety of sources including smoking in the building, earthquakes, storms, disgruntled employees, or power generator failure.

An ERP deals with the immediate physical effects of a disaster and is used as an initial response for the first few hours after an actual disaster or after the threat of a disaster. It ensures the safety, health, and welfare of staff, visitors, and others on premises. It is the beginning step to a prompt and efficient recovery of essential business operations.

The plan outlines several procedures such as an evacuation procedure, bomb threat procedure, and chemical spill procedure. A triggering mechanism is included to activate the Site Crisis Management Plan (SCM Plan).

Site Crisis Management Plan Template (SCMP Template) - This template is used to create a Site Crisis Management Plan (SCM Plan). The objective of the SCM Plan is to enable management to oversee and manage recovery operations.

Other products available (by Recoverics.com) include Pandemic Planning Handbook and Business Continuity Planning Methodology book.