As a business owner, you have to prepare yourself for a number of eventualities, COVID-19 being one such example.

One thing the pandemic has taught us is the importance of planning for situations that could have a sufficient impact on your business.

This is where business continuity comes in, a type of planning and preparation for eventualities and scenarios which could have a big effect on your business and employees.

As part of our mission to help businesses grow, here at the UK Domain we asked the Head of Audit & Risk and Lead Internal Auditor from Nominet (who run our business continuity activity) to share some key advice and expertise.

From what business continuity is to how to prepare a continuity plan and what should be included all the way to investment and testing, the full Q&A is a valuable resource for any business looking to start, or refine, their own plan.

We’re going to share just a few of the top tips from the experts here. You can read the full Q&A here.

What areas of business should a continuity plan cover?

Try and identify your single points of failure and think about what you can do to soften those blows, this could be:

• Incident plans
• Communication plans
• Identifying single points of failure
• Cross skills with partners
• Creating a plan

How much should you invest in business continuity?

Business continuity should be part of your business maintenance and development. If you have something that is absolutely critical, you’ll want to protect it.

Invest what time, money, and resources you can. This will be different for each individual business; it doesn’t have to cost a lot, but it does vary as everyone will have different critical areas.

How often should you test and review your plan?

Review your business continuity plan at least annually or after a change or event. Check that it is still up to date and fit for purpose. Make sure you test your plan, make changes, and plan again. It’s really important that you haven’t built a continuity plan which is too complex to work.

In summary:

Business continuity is a vital part of running a successful business and there are plenty of easy ways to get started, from free online templates to adapting documents you might already have. Don’t forget to have a read of the full expert Q&A for more trusted advice on how to ensure your business has a strong continuity plan in place which, most importantly, is going to be helpful if you ever need to use it.

This article has been brought to you in partnership with the UK Domain.

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