Business Continuity For Dummies

• Assess and minimize the risk of disruption to your business
• Create your own business continuity plan
• Apply business continuity in practice

Introduction 1

Part I: Discovering Business Continuity 7

Chapter 1: Introducing Business Continuity 9

Chapter 2: Understanding the Importance of Business Continuity 19

Chapter 3: Achieving Rapid Results and Quick Wins 33

Part II: Starting Out on Your Business Continuity Journey 51

Chapter 4: Focusing on What’s Important: Business Impact Analysis 53

Chapter 5: Considering the Risks to Your Business 71

Chapter 6: Building Resilience in Your Supply Chain 95

Chapter 7: Selecting the Right Continuity Strategies 107

Chapter 8: Developing Your Business Continuity Plan 127

Part III: Embedding Business Continuity into Your Company 141

Chapter 9: Building a Great Business Continuity Team 143

Chapter 10: Managing a Crisis 153

Chapter 11: Validating Your Business Continuity Plan 171

Part IV: Examining Business Continuity in Specific Contexts 193

Chapter 12: Calling in the Experts 195

Chapter 13: Viewing Business Continuity from a Manufacturing Perspective 207

Chapter 14: Developing a Retail Business Continuity Programme 217

Chapter 15: Using Business Continuity with Professional Services Firms 225

Chapter 16: Making Insurance Work 235

Part V: The Part of Tens 249

Chapter 17: Ten Top Tips for Keeping Your IT in Great Shape 251

Chapter 18: Ten Tips for Communicating Internally During a Disruption 257

Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Effective External Communication in a Crisis 263

Index 269

"An impressive and informative book. Don't get a consultant, save your money and buy the book instead." (Frost Magazine, May 2013)

"The book is a useful guide to the topic that would serve as good foundation even for enterprises embarking upon of reviving a BC plan." (ComputerScope, November 2012)

"The guide provides simple, practical and low cost steps to help companies make sure they can stand up to disruptions." (The Start Up Donut, 12th October 2012)

"... a balanced and comprehensive book of chapters, each of which can be read on its own, allowing the reader to focus on what is important to their business, conscious that they are getting the full picture." (October 2012)

Stuart Sterling and Anna Payne work in the Civil Contingencies Secretariat of the Cabinet Office. Brian Duddridge is Business Continuity Manager for the Welsh Government. Andrew Elliott is the External Business Continuity Policy Lead for the Scottish Government. Michael Conway is Director at Renaissance Contingency Services.

Learn to:

• Identify the risks to your business
• Create your own business continuity plan
• Make your business more resilient
• Act swiftly and effectively if disruption hits

Equip yourself with the tools to keep your business running, whatever the future holds

Disaster and disruption could strike your business at any time: fire, flood, technical failure, or just being let down by your key supplier. In the event of a disruption, how sure are you that your business will continue to operate? Written by a team comprising the UK's top experts on crisis planning and business continuity management, this book helps you to ensure that your company can weather any storm, no matter how small you are. You'll learn to identify the key activities that your business carries out that are essential to it continuing during a disruption, deal with risks to your organisation and create easy-to-use business continuity (BC) plans tailored to your company, giving you confidence if the worst does happen.

• Manage for crisis, every day – find out what business continuity planning is all about, why it's so important to make it part of your everyday management processes and how to do it
• Get to know your weaknesses – zero-in on where your business is most vulnerable to disruption and learn to recognise the threats, both internal and external
• Put BC into context – discover how to create BC processes that are right for your business, whether you manufacture a product, sell retail, or provide a service
• Hope for the best, plan for the worst – create comprehensive BC management plans that will give you the competitive advantage and allow you to keep trading when others cannot
• Leave nothing to chance – test and practise your plans and gain the peace of mind that comes with knowing you're prepared
• Rally your troops – build a crack BC team and be sure that they're prepared to do what needs to be done in the event of disruption

Open the book and find:

• Guidance on identifying your company's most critical processes and practices
• How to identify significant threats, both internal and external
• Techniques for assessing the major risks of disruption
• How to build BC into your company's everyday activities
• How to build an effective BC team no matter how small your business is
• Tips for safeguarding your IT system