Introduction
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there are a plethora of companies that have suffered a lot in terms of revenue and profitability. The need for a business continuity plan is greater than ever especially in this pandemic situation where companies are trying to run their business. The idea of creating a business continuity plan does not revolve around recovering the companies from disruption only. It helps organizations to run their business smoothly and productively in crisis situations.
Nowadays businesses are trying to formulate a system that will protect their assets and human resources and eventually help in the smooth flow of business. A business continuity plan should be pre-drafted with predetermined protocols for recovering your organization in overcoming a business disruption caused due to emergency. The objective of BCP lies in mitigating damage and reinstating the business operations before any existential business threats.
Benefits of Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
Organizations these days have realized the importance of business continuity plans as the current pandemic situation has hit hard to almost all businesses across the world. Whether it is a startup or a multinational giant, a business continuity plan has several benefits including threat mitigation, smooth functioning of business operations, disaster recovery, etc. that companies can reap in the emergency situation. Below are the top 10 reasons why a BCP holds significant importance for organizations.
1. Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery plays a crucial role in the business continuity plan in the restoration of the business operations. Disasters are unexpected things that can come in most of the odd situations. Companies having a solid business continuity plan are known for surviving successfully during crisis situations. Hence, the inclusion of disaster recovery is very important to run the company successfully in an emergency situation.
2. Organizational Assurance
Companies need to assure the customers, stakeholders, third-party vendors, and business partners during the crisis situation that everything is under control. Businesses should comfort their employees while communicating with them timely and maintaining transparency with the actual situation and the possible steps that need to be taken for controlling the crisis. Clear communication will help the employees to cope up with the stress eventually and lead to confusion to the bare minimum.
3. Quality Control
Irrespective of any critical situation, it is very important for the business to maintain quality in terms of their products and services so that they donтАЩt lose customersтАЩ loyalty towards the brands. A business continuity plan helps the companies to maintain quality while replacing the resources that are affected in the crisis situation by technology and alternative infrastructure. This maintains the quality of the products consistently that will prioritize the customerтАЩs expectations and maintain the brand reputation.
4. Decreased Downtimes
A business continuity plan is required for decreasing the downtimes of the business. Be it a technical outage or any human resource outage, BCP is meant to help organizations run their business operations in an emergency situation. The aim of any company must be to offer uninterrupted services to its customers so that they can gain the trust of the customers and the revenue of the company must not get uninterrupted.
5. Risk Management
Risk management is one of the main reasons that companies invest in business continuity plans. Due to the continuous pandemic situation, most of the businesses are making losses as the source of revenue and business operations get interrupted due to lockdown. Business continuity plans on the other hand can help the companies to mitigate the risks that can happen in the pandemics. The damage control initiatives and the risk management strategies simultaneously help organizations in coping up with the situation.
6. Continued Product Excellence
When a company can execute its business continuity plan successfully during a pandemic situation, it can turn emergencies from hemorrhages to hiccups. Business operations can be run smoothly while serving continuously to the customer and the vendors by delivering value and protecting the integrity of the business. On the contrary, product excellence can be achieved when the company will plan a successful BCP as part of a risk management strategy.
7. Preserve Brand Reputation
Maintaining a proper brand reputation in the market is crucial to any business in the long run. It will not only help in customer loyalty and acquisition but also will provide a company a smooth flow of revenue from the respective channels. Having a successful business continuity plan will help in building the customerтАЩs trust during a crisis situation and operating smoothly while fulfilling customer expectations. Eventually, it will preserve the brand value and brand reputation towards its customers and market.
8. Compliance with Industry Standards
Devising a proper business continuity plan helps the companyтАЩs leadership team distinctly follow the business continuity standards. It helps in ascertaining the organization is compliant with the industry mandates and regulatory terms. The compliance ensures the proper execution of the business continuity plan of the company while reflecting that the organization is aware of its risk management strategies and other responsibilities.
9. Protect Supply Chain
The business continuity plan captures most of the critical operations that need to be mitigated and recovered. Often the business operations get disrupted completely due to the disruptions. The implementation of a business continuity plan helps the stakeholders and the leaders to take necessary steps beforehand while protecting the critical operations. Eventually, it helps the organization in maintaining the whole process of the supply chain from the beginning while delivering customers with their products within the committed time.
10. Competitive Edge
Designing a business continuity plan sometimes offers a competitive advantage to some companies in the market. The knowledge of responding to emergencies by resuming business operations, recovering business disruptions as per the BCP ensures the customers that they are involved with a responsible entity. This also creates a positive image of your company amongst the competitors, stakeholders, business partners, etc.
Will You Need a Business Continuity Plan?
A successful business continuity plan will help the organization in surviving serious business disruptions during an emergency situation. It eliminates the common confusions that may arise in a crisis situation by offering a crisp blueprint for the actionable steps essential to mitigate the risks. Your business continuity plan supports communication between customers and employees, customer service response, business security, workflow operations, etc. It also helps in keeping your company in a better position to support your employees in crisis situations and motivate them to work by fulfilling the customerтАЩs needs.
