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if your business stops performing a particular activity and how long can it survive without it ? Then rank risks in priority order to determine a hierarchy of how and when to deal with them .

5 . Identify the processes and resources that help your business minimise these impacts .

Plan your incident response Once you ’ ve outlined the risks and impacts of disruption on your business , you need to define how you ’ ll handle them . Identify your crisis response team , those among your staff who will be needed when responding to an incident . Also nominate who can take their place if they ’ re not available .

1 . Determine messaging and communication channels used during the crisis , including the timing of your communications . What will you say to your stakeholders ? How often will you communicate with staff and clients , and how ?

2 . Create a contact list with all the necessary contact details for communication in these times . This includes your internal staff , their families , clients , suppliers and even emergency service contacts . Depending on your communication channels , this can include phone number , address , email , Skype ID or Twitter handle .

3 . Use the processes you created in your risk planning to formalise the actions you ’ ll take when specific disruptions occur . This is where you should go into detail , so you can make it as easy as possible for any reader to understand what to do in a situation .

Plan the recovery Once the disruption has occurred and it ’ s been managed successfully ( hopefully the business is afloat and everyone is safe ), it ’ s time for the recovery phase of the plan . Your recovery plan outlines the steps to take to resume your business-critical activities and the required timeframes , that will lead you back to business as usual – whatever that may look like .

1 . Determine the specific processes that will get your core business activities back online as quickly as possible .

2 . Identify the key resources and staff needed to complete these steps .

3 . Develop a checklist of key indicators to mark your recovery plan progress .

It ’ s all about peace of mind . Having a Business Continuity plan is a step to protecting against business risks and helps you to more safely manage them . If 2020 tells us anything , one of the lessons is that preparedness and resourcefulness is a great crutch in troubling times . Spend time on your continuity plan now . Be ready for whatever may come next and use the experience to develop a culture of preparedness among all your staff . �

START SIMPLE AND CREATE THE CORE FRAMEWORK AND THEN BUILD OUT THE SPECIFIC ELEMENTS OF THE OVERALL PLAN FROM THERE .