The Issue
The ability to recover time sensitive business processes following an interruption is central to the business continuity program goal of minimizing the impacts of a disruptive incident. Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) document the procedures and the resources a department will use to accomplish this task.
What You Should Know
Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) are geared to the departments (or other organizational elements) that are responsible for executing business processes. Each department needs its own plan that reflects the relative priority of the business processes that fall within the department’s scope of operation. The relative priority of each business process, and the time within which each process must be recovered, is established in the Business Impact Analysis (BIA). The BIA must be completed before departmental business continuity plans can be created.
How EMSS Can Help
EMSS can guide the selection of departmental recovery strategies that reflect the business needs documented in the BIA report. Once recovery strategies have been selected, EMSS can create a BCP template that reflects the unique needs and requirements of the organization’s business continuity program. After the BCP templates have been populated, EMSS can assist in developing a validation exercise that allows each department to use its recovery plan in response to a simulated event.