Simply put, your business continuity plan needs to effectively address the realities of the situation, and provide a clear, adaptable road map for your organization to follow. To do this, your BCP needs to include several vital components.
Strategy
Aspects of your plan need to address how your people will be able to complete standard tasks during the duration of the emergency. The strategy should be directed at ensuring continuous business operations.
Organization
Your business continuity plan needs to lay out responsibilities of different employees in the event of an emergency. It must also address issues related to structure and communications such as call trees.
Processes
Identifying critical business and IT processes, the plan will clearly determine which processes are the highest priority in terms of keeping your business running.
Technology
Along with processes, your business continuity plan will need to address the vital systems, networks, and technologies to backup data and applications, and enable operations and productivity uninterrupted.
Vendor risk
Your business continuity plan should also take into account how emergency situations may affect your third-party suppliers and vendors, and how their disruption could affect you. Likewise, understanding your vendors’ continuity plans will help you fill in some of the variables when it comes to creating your own plans.