The relationship of an entrepreneur and his endeavor is nothing short of a journey of a lifetime. The highs and lows, the profits and the losses, the happiness and the frustrations, all the emotions that an entrepreneur faces in the course of time of establishing a business, resound the meaning of life. So the most important aspect for a businessman becomes the need to keep the business continuing and progressing. After all the efforts that an entrepreneur puts into bringing the company up to a level, no one would like that effort to go for a toss. All the decisions taken, options opted for, choices made; everything revolves around this continuity plan.
What is Business Continuity?
Hirav Shah explains, “Business continuity is an organization’s ability to maintain essential functions during and after a disaster has occurred. Business continuity planning establishes risk management processes and procedures that aim to prevent interruptions to mission-critical services and re-establish full function to the organization as quickly and smoothly as possible.
The most basic business continuity requirement is to keep essential functions up and running during a disaster and to recover with as little downtime as possible. A business continuity plan considers various unpredictable events, such as natural disasters, fires, disease outbreaks, cyberattacks, and other external threats.
Business continuity is important for organizations of any size, but it might not be practical for any but the largest enterprises to maintain all functions for the duration of a disaster. According to many experts, the first step in business continuity planning is deciding what functions are essential and allocating the available budget accordingly. Once crucial components have been identified, administrators can put failover mechanisms in place.
Technologies such as disk mirroring enable an organization to maintain up-to-date copies of data in geographically dispersed locations, not just in the primary data center. This enables data access to continue uninterrupted if one location is disabled and protects against data loss.”
Importance of Business Continuity
Shah adds, “Opportunities, big or small, are always around the corner. Especially for a business whose product has diversified market share, to find a small business opportunity or a big business opportunity is not cause for concern. But no opportunity, big or small, is of any worth if not grabbed at the right point. One of the key determiners of business continuity is the ability of the management to seek and utilize these opportunities. The market is a vibrant space, with new trends and changing customer base at all times. More than anything else, the main reason for concern would be competition. It always seems like the competition is always a step ahead, trying out new things and figuring out new ways to appease the end customer. To overcome the competition and fight it out, it is extremely crucial for the business to keep itself on top of its game and be ahead of the competition.”
Hirav Shah says, “To find small business opportunities will actually benefit the company to get hold of more market share or at the least promote the company in one way or the other; also constant networking with different vendors and other business partners and reaching out to new grounds to constantly test the company’s product in various scenarios. Ensuring all the stakeholders involved in the business are constantly trained and their knowledge is upgraded also gives a strong advantage to the company. All these measures give the company flexibility in diversifying and also provides them with a Plan B. Having these alternative plans and avenues gives the business continuity plan a strong foothold, as the company will not be dependent on a single avenue of revenue.
Another important thing to consider is to safeguard the company’s data and information and keep the business functioning intact. At a time, where seemingly technology has almost replaced human intervention, the company can easily become vulnerable. As all the company data nowadays is stored and dependent on technology, an alternative form of all key information, mainly the information regarding the clientele and employees and also any sensitive information like innovations and inventions of the company, should be maintained. To have things under control and to prevent rather than looking for a cure is always a smart option to safeguard the company’s interests.”
Hirav Shah wraps it up by saying, “Business continuity isn’t just about technology. It is the overall procedures that keep the business going when things go wrong. Companies should plan for worst-case scenarios but be practical in their business continuity scope and testing.
To be prepared, you should have monthly meetings, conduct quarterly drills, make changes when necessary, and most importantly — don’t panic.“
