Page 99 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Unit 5: Corporate Governance and IT

The size and complexity of your business continuity plan will depend on your business. You Notes
may choose to have separate risk management, incident response and recovery plans. If you are
a small business, you might find a single business continuity plan that incorporates all of these
elements suits you better.

5.6.1 Benefits of a Business Continuity Plan

While some companies have developed contingency plans, most have not. This lack of
preparedness not only threatens the viability of sectors in Canada, but, as in the case of
manufacturing, also jeopardises the delivery of critical goods that depend on complex supply
chain systems.
Creating and maintaining a BCP helps ensure that your business has the resources and information
needed to deal with an emergency. Other benefits include:

Enhance your business image with employees, shareholders and customers by
demonstrating a proactive attitude.

Improve efficiency in the overall organisation.
Identify the relationship of assets both human and financial resources with respect to
critical services and deliverables.

5.6.2 Business Continuity Plan Management

Your business continuity plan is a living document. Testing your plan regularly will help you
evaluate how reliable it will be if you have to respond to an incident or crisis. You can then
update it with any improvements.
You should update your business continuity plan at least once a year. You will also need to
update it whenever there are changes in your business, your industry or the location you
operate in.

Notes Keeping your staff up to date with any changes to your plan will help them put it
into action in case of an incident, which will in turn reduce the impact to your business.

5.6.3 Strategies for Testing your Business Continuity Plan

Some parts of your business continuity plan will be easier to test than others. For areas that are
difficult to physically test, consider paper-based exercises and meetings to review and assess the
plan.

The following are some strategies for testing your plan.

Drills and Training

You may be legally required to provide training and conduct drills to test some of the workplace
health and safety aspects of your business continuity plan, such as fire evacuation plans.
If you deal with hazardous materials, special equipment, or in risky environments, you may
need to provide training for your staff so they can do their jobs safely and respond appropriately
if there is an incident. Find out what workplace health and safety practice apply to your business.

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