Developing simple recovery plans for key processes

If a major incident affected your business tomorrow, what are the processes, machinery or even suppliers that would be really hard to replace quickly – the really awkward ones, the unique machinery or equipment that perhaps there isn’t really a plan for, let alone a plan that gets you back within an acceptable recovery time?

Spotting the problems is relatively easy, particularly when you get into manufacturing or supply chain businesses. The challenge for Business Continuity Managers is to do something about them and develop practical, simple recovery plans – even for the hard stuff.

I lead Business Continuity Management at Rolls-Royce Plc, where we have several key manufacturing processes that are both important and challenging to recover quickly.

Over the last year, we have developed a simple but effective approach to business recovery planning for these processes and it fits in just two pages.

This approach has helped the business to understand the risk, recover more efficiently and to prioritise capital investment decisions.

At the 2014 BCI World Conference and Exhibition, I’ll be showing you how this works along with providing practical hints and tips so that you can make it work in your business too.

James Stevenson will be discussing this issue further on day one of the BCI World Conference and Exhibition on Wednesday 5th November. You will find him in seminar room 2 starting at