Business Resiliency Round Table

Make a Plan

What Is Business Continuity Management (BCM)?

A holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that may threaten an organization and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand, and value-creating activities.

Source:  Business Continuity Institute

Why Implement Business Continuity Management?

It’s expected by your:

Employees – Safety and Livelihood
Customers – Protect Dependency
Shareholders – Investment Protection

You need to be able to assure employees, customers, stockholders and directors that the company can survive a potentially business-ending crisis.

The Economic Benefits of BCM Programs:

• Avoid large losses and expensive insurance premiums.
• Greater program efficiencies through standardized processes and tools.
• Better investment decisions by considering key risks up front.
• Improved operational resilience means less downtime and speedier recoveries.
• Protection of market share.

The Management Benefits of BCM Programs:

• Greater confidence that operational risks are being identified and managed.
• Greater organizational awareness, and understanding of key operational tasks.
• Managing risk becomes integrated with strategic planning and daily decision-making (tradeoffs between financial goals and risk exposures are considered).
• Better documentation of critical knowledge and processes protects core competencies.

Community Benefits of BCM Programs:

More prepared and resilient employers means a more prepared and resilient Sonoma County.

Some Resources to Get Started:

The Institute for Business and Home Safety offers a tool kit designed to provide small- to mid-sized businesses with the ability to follow many of the disaster planning and recovery processes used by much larger companies--without the need for a large budget or a background in construction, property protection or business continuity planning. On the Institute's web home page, click on the Open for Business icon to find the Open for Business
tool kit.

Source: Institute for Business and Home Safety

This sample Business Continuity and Disaster Preparedness Plan was created by the Department of Homeland Security’s Ready Business program.  It is a simple tool that can be used by businesses of all sizes to take the first steps toward preparedness.

Source:  Ready Business, Department of Homeland Security

This guide to writing a Business/Organization Disaster Plan was created by the Sonoma County Department of Emergency Services.  It is a six-week planning regimen that should take less than an hour to answer each week's list of items--only 12 minutes per day.

This quick Keys to a Basic Disaster Plan checklist was created by the American Red Cross.  It features key elements for employers to include in any disaster plan.

Source:  American Red Cross