A business continuity plan could save your company

It’s always better to be safe than sorry. There is no such thing as zero risk for medium-sized companies. The list of potential threats – such as major failures of production facilities or IT systems, natural disasters, fires, cyber attacks, pandemics, or malicious acts – continues to get longer, in particular due to climate change and digitisation, which makes companies more susceptible to hackers and computer viruses. “The nature, frequency and cost of crises have shifted considerably over the last 20 years,” confirms a recent report published by the French Secretariat-General for National Defence and Security.

Such disasters are not without consequences for medium-sized companies. Indeed, according to a study by Disaster Recovery Institute International, 43% of companies that were not prepared for the disasters they experienced never re-open, and 29% of those that do survive go on to close within the next two years. There is, however, a solution to ensure the business survives after a fire destroys your factory, a system failure paralyses your company email, or an epidemic causes a significant proportion of your staff to fall ill – the business continuity plan.

Snowball effect

The business continuity plan serves to define all the necessary measures to ensure a company can weather and withstand any outside shock that affects its normal operations. It serves to enhance the company’s resilience and minimise lost revenue in the event of a serious problem. Even a seemingly small incident at a facility can have repercussions on the entire value chain of medium-sized companies and jeopardise business continuity. Quite simply, a business continuity plan seeks to guarantee the company’s survival.

“The aim is to define a map of the risks to which the company could be exposed and set out the steps to take in the event of trouble to avoid any business interruption.” To ensure it is effective, the plan must be tailored to suit your company. “There is no standard template that applies to every business,” confirms Abed Berrabah, Head of Commercial Markets at MMA. “The only shared principle is the methodology applied.”

Methodology

The first step in drawing up a business continuity plan is to identify the risks you face. Is one of your factories located in a flood risk area? Do your employees check company data on their smartphones and tablets? Does your entire production line risk going down if just one machine stops working? This analysis work, which can take up to two weeks depending on the size of your business and the risks it faces, requires an in-depth understanding of your company’s particularities and processes.

“A business continuity plan requires a complete understanding of the risks each medium-sized company faces,” explains Pierre-François Dezalys. “That is why we always need to meet our customers and why they must always involve their suppliers and clients. Once the risks have been identified, it is possible to prepare the response to reduce the impact of potential disasters, well ahead of time. To be effective, these measures must be put in place rapidly, without delay.” But theory can only get you so far, and putting the plan into practice is another matter.

Crisis scenario

Once drafted, the business continuity plan must be tested in real-world conditions, ideally once a year. A crisis scenario must be designed and deployed across one or several facilities without informing the employees ahead of time. Their reactions must be studied and timed by an independent observer sent to the scene. This exercise enables you to draw learnings in the debriefing process and assess whether the plan was effective or requires tweaking.

In France, the business continuity plan is not mandatory, but more and more medium-sized companies are choosing to put one in place. The increasing digitisation in business creates new risks that need to be anticipated, and ever-more customers require their suppliers to implement a business continuity plan before signing a contract with them. Contracting authorities will always prefer a company that can guarantee it will not interrupt supply in the event of a disaster.