Business Continuity Management

 

Business Continuity Management Planning (BCP)

Our experience covers every aspect of business continuity planning (BCP), crisis management and incident management, and we have developed a range of consultancy services to help our clients prepare for, manage and recover from these situations.  Whilst many consultancy companies focus their business continuity planning (BCP) on IT issues or fire, we ensure your plans cover all the major incidents that may affect your business.  We also have a comprehensive range of crisis management related training courses, please click here to go to our dedicated training site.


Risk profiling and business impact analysis

Effective business continuity management requires well-trained teams and the development of effective procedures and detailed planning for specific crisis types, e.g. flood, fire, loss of a key supplier, IT failure, fatal accident, mass absenteeism, etc.

As a first step towards developing an effective business continuity management plan one or more meetings will take place between the RQA consultant and key members of your crisis management team or other senior managers.  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.  Those crises that are classified as "high" or "medium" risk to the business after considering mitigating and prevention factors should have specific procedures developed. 

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.

Business Continuity Management Plan Development

In the meetings described above, the risk profiling data and the business impact analysis information are collated.  In addition, 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. 

The business continuity plans (BCP) 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.

There will be the need for further communication for the consultant to ensure that the business continuity plans (BCP) that they develop are completely in line with your business.  Once a draft BCP is completed it will be sent 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.  The next step is to ensure your crisis management team are familiar with the plan and that it is tested in a simulated exercise.


Incident and crisis management plans

In addition to the business continuity planning process described above, RQA consultants can assist you in developing plans to help your staff manage the immediate onset of an emergency situation.  Many production sites operate 24 hours per day and it is often during "out of office hours" that incidents occur.  This is also the time when there are usually no senior managers on site and so the immediate response has to be handled by junior management or supervisors etc.  It is the company's responsibility to ensure that these people receive appropriate training and procedures. 

For example, simple plans can be developed to assist personnel to make the right decisions from an early stage.  This could include when to call the emergency services, what to say to them, whether to evacuate the site fully or partially, providing roll call information to the fire service, notifying senior management and handing over to senior management.

 

Crisis Management Training

We provide a range of crisis management training courses targeted at directors and senior managers, crisis management teams as well as factory floor workers.  Our training courses cover basics of crisis management, practical scenarios and case studies, crisis communications and crisis PR as well as simulated crisis incidents and live emergency exercises involving the emergency services.  Click here to go to our dedicated training web site.