The essential contents of a business continuity plan

Sometimes it's helpful to understand what specific content you should have in your business continuity plan. Here, we provide a summary of the things that should be in place in EVERY business continuity plan - all of which can be found in our business continuity plan template

1. A cross-functional crisis team that can run without one or two key people. so you have capability in depth.

2. An accessible emergency contact list that’s up to date. For both internal and external contacts. It does not have to be in one repository, but each response team should be confident that their contact lists can be relied upon and will be accessible when they need them.

3. The capability communicate when our main IT systems are unavailable.

4. Essential data can be restored from a confirmed clean, ideally immutable backup

5. The minimum set of systems and people needed to keep the business alive has been defined and proven by testing.

6. Run books that schedule and prioritise the order in which processes and apps are restored

7. Legal, compliance, and regulators are part of the incident management plan

8. A defined strategy for communicating with media, customers and investors.

9. Can we pivot fast if one of our most critical suppliers goes dark

10. Proven confidence in any external recovery partners on retainer who we know will respond 24/7

11. Arrangements for keeping our people safe, informed, and supported.

12. A means of providing assurance to third parties that the plan is fit for purpose, compliant with recognised standards and good practice and an organisation and processes in place to keep it that way