Keeping your business operating during an emergency

Being prepared at home is an important part of good emergency planning.  But preparedness does not end on our doorsteps.  The Government of Canada supports Business Continuity Planning ( BCP ) as an excellent way for companies, institutions and government to ensure the delivery of their critical services and products during and after a disaster or emergency. While the federal government’s BCP mandate is limited to its own operations, it does offer general advice on preparing for a disruption in business operations.

To be effective, BCP must be an ongoing process that requires support and funding by the senior management of an organization.  This includes developing plans—that are tried and proven—to enable institutions to survive emergencies while protecting critical assets, continue critical service or product delivery at acceptable levels and, of course, protect staff welfare and safety.

As well, a BCP program must include a documented collection of procedures and ensure that information is developed and maintained for use in a disruption. It must also identify and minimize the impacts of potential losses in output, while maintaining viable recovery and continuity strategies and plans.

These plans may include, or relate to:

· preventive controls (such as physical security, information technology, and personnel security plans);

· plans and safeguards to counter the impacts of failures or slow-downs in external national critical infrastructures such as those for hydro, oil, gas, water, food, transportation, communications and financial institutions;

· crisis or emergency operations/response plans;

· mitigation plans; and

· continuity plans for critical services or products that have no acceptable downtime. 

BCP is thus an umbrella for other planning and is a key value-added improvement process firmly integrated with risk management.

They must be kept “evergreen” through change management, continuous revision, training, exercises and lessons-learned programs.

To learn more about BCP , check the overview at www.psepc.gc.ca/chan/bus/index-en.asp for information and other resources on BCP .

- Information from Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada

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