Why Business Continuity Plan matters

Covid19 has impacted in many ways on livelihood, businesses and the governments around the world. A wake up call that we can’t take things for granted anymore, we have to rethink redesign on many things from basic food supply chain, speeding up sustainability to business operations. 

These days the companies and organisations are putting on priority for Business Continuity Plan as we are prepared for more disruptions since Pandemic together with climate changes and wars.

I have a privilege to worked for American financial institutions for years, my first experiences of business operations disruptions began with September 11. After the incidents, most foreign banks have seriously put plans on setup BCP unit. The initiatives and objectives of BCP were kind of “straight” forward at that time, is all about business operations readiness should disaster happened that disrupted operation.  However, not all organisations are into setting up of BCP unit for the company as it requires a lot of planning, resources like expertise, staffing, funding, systems, and to some extend Jobs and processes redesign. 

Over the years, through the setup process and yearly run, we found many advantages of having BCP present, is not just for disaster recovery, it has also become a “tool” to use it as

Business operations recovery for local and oversea branches as backup

Alignment/standardised on business operations for all branches globally

Frameworks were created

Identifying potential risks and closing the gaps for business operations

Staffs are more involved and trained, these have boosted the moral and confidence of the staffs as they are able to contribute their expertises and voices on the journey of the process. The company heard and valued.

I personally have experienced the team work and support of the teams that we have worked with, the bonding, communication and respect as a whole for the organization is priceless.