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What is the basis of Business Continuity Planning (BCP)?
BCP is about understanding the business and establishing what is required to ensure its survival following a major incident that affects its normal operations. BCP must be focused on critical business activities. All internal and external dependencies that support these activities (e.g. IT, supply chain, key services) and external influences (e.g. legal or regulatory requirements) which may affect them must be identified.
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What is Business Impact Analysis (BIA)?
The Business Impact Analysis (BIA) identifies what would be the impact upon the organisation’s goals if critical processes and functions were disrupted or lost. The BIA enables the organisation to focus BCP activities on essential business elements rather than conduct an organisation-wide analysis covering all business processes. The BIA process identifies the time sensitivity of each business function or process to disruption, and this information will determine and prioritise the recovery and continuity objectives.
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What is Risk Identification and Assessment (RIA)?
Risk Identification and Assessment (RIA) is used to determine the internal and external threats to the working environment, facilities and personnel that could cause loss or disruption to the critical business processes, and their likelihood of occurrence. It is important to note that the RIA conducted within a Business Continuity Program covers only operational risks and is focused only on critical business processes.
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How can I tell if I need WWW.PLAN-IT-CONTROL-IT.COM
Take our free, simple to use, on-line self-assessment test. It asks you 15 questions. It is designed to make you think. If you are unhappy about your answers to these questions, if they make you realise that maybe you are more at risk than you may have thought, then WWW.PLAN-IT-CONTROL-IT.COM is for you.
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Who is responsible for Business Continuity Planning (BCP)?
The simple answer is the same person/people as responsible for the company or organisation. BCP is a senior management concern.
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What does it cost?
WWW.PLAN-IT-CONTROL-IT.COM provides a toolkit of documents in the form of plans, schedules, checklists, report formats, agendas, spreadsheets etc. that are grouped in to ten sets of documents. You can purchase and download all the sets combined into one package from this site containing over 90 documents) for £80 from this site.
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Who are WWW.PLAN-IT-CONTROL-IT.COMand why should we trust you?
The Track Record of the teams from R and H Solutions Ltd. is well established. Offering many years of experience and expertise in developing business support tools from IT to Project and Change Management to Business Continuity Planning (BCP). In the first instance we have designed and developed a radical but sensible approach to risk analysis and contingency planning for the Small to Medium Sized Business
We have used the experience of our senior consultants to create a unique set of documents. With experience in industries as diverse as the insurance and financial sector through to publishing and distribution, we have distilled that knowledge and expertise in to a set of plans and checklists that will help you deal with disaster and emergency.
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How much does Business Continuity Planning cost?
The answer will depend on the organisation, its infrastructure, customers, suppliers and staff. It is, of course, true to say no two business are the same. However,
WWW.PLAN-IT-CONTROL-IT.COM does provide a financial model in the form of a spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will allow you to develop a budget for both the planning phase, and in the event of that emergency or crisis actually happening, it will also allow you to have a budget for invoking your plans and recovering your operation. There is a cliché, but never the less a true one, that if you do encounter that disaster,
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How long will Business Continuity Planning take?
WWW.PLAN-IT-CONTROL-IT.COM provides a wealth of documents, plans, spreadsheets, report formats and layouts, agendas, questionnaires, checklists etc. You could in theory use them all and develop some very extensive plans. Our recommendation is that you are selective in what you do, and what you use. Business Continuity Planning, like all good business processes, should be appropriate to your organisation, it’s structure, customers and staff. The watchword is appropriateness, do what is right for your business, use the tool kit provided to build an appropriate response to disaster, one that fits your organisation and that your staff can believe in and execute.
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Do I need to test the plan(s)
Absolutely yes. Fundamental to having a realistic, robust and workable plan is the knowledge that to the best of your beliefs it will work. And the only way of knowing this is to TEST. Testing a BCP is not an easy task, we have dedicated a complete section of the documents to this subject, but this is the only way to have confidence in your plans. It will also reinforce to staff and Stakeholders alike that you are serious about Business Continuity Planning.
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What is a disaster?
For the purposes of Business Continuity Planning The definition of a disaster is:
“Any incident that causes a severe disruption to a Business Unit’s working environment, facilities and personnel which results in an inability to function or to provide service to internal or external customers”
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What do insurance companies look for?
Every insurance company has its own rules and regulations but a typical requirement would look much like the BCP Policy Statement which defines the requirements for a robust and regularly reviewed and tested plan, with clearly defined responsibility and ownership.
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Can someone else do it for you?
Unfortunately we do not believe so. They can help, they can formulate the questions, they can advise and identify shortfalls and shortcomings in your plans, they can help define the risks and the impacts. But ultimately a thorough knowledge of your business is the basic building block of Business Continuity Planning. And really the only people who can do that are the senior management of an organisation.
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Where do I start?
Start using the building blocks in Planning and Organisation, documents such as the Policy Statement, the Health Check, the Life cycle and the BCP Standards document will give you a good starting point.
What is the Health Check?
In just 40 questions the HEALTH CHECK provides you with a challenging and through provoking exercise. As Senior Manager do you know the risks to your organisation? Do you have a strategy for dealing with an emergency? Can you or have you communicated that plan to staff? Is it tested and up to date?
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Do I need a Business Continuity Function or Department?
You will need someone who is responsible for Business Continuity at a very senior level. You will also need someone who is responsible for the planning, testing and training aspects, the business continuity function. Depending on the size and complexity of business this may be a full time role – but probably for most SME’s not necessarily so by any means. Again it comes down to what is appropriate for your business or organisation. It is highly likely that the business continuity function will form part of one or more staff members’ job descriptions.
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What is the Business Continuity Management Steering Committee?
The Business Continuity Management Steering Committee (BCMSC) reports to the senior manager responsible business continuity and is itself responsible for strategic decision making
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Will you know my credit card details?
Your credit card details are not held anywhere on this site. They are passed securely to our credit card authorisation system and we have no knowledge of them at all – we just receive notification as to whether the card and the amount were authorised
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What is Risk in terms of a project?
Risk is the impact of future activities and events causing quality, plans and/or budgets to be disrupted. A risk register or risk log is used to record the two major elements of managing a risk - risk determination (identifying and evaluating the risk) and risk control (activities taken to reduce the likelihood and impact of a risk).
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Why use Scenario Planning
Scenario Planning is an important tool in the testing and proving of Business Continuity Plans. This document lays down the rules for testing the BCP in order to firstly validate the composition of the teams, secondly check procedures, thirdly validate the decision making process and finally ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities
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