B U S I N E SS C O N T I N U I T Y P L A N

Business Continuity
Plan Template
A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) helps you prepare for a B U S I N E SS N A M E :
major disruption to your business. It puts processes and
plans in place to respond to these events and enable
you to limit the impact these events have on your critical
Date:
business functions. This template is a high level overview
of the fundamental steps in putting together this plan. Created by:

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A RY:
An executive summary should include the purpose of having a BCP for your business and
highlight the key points in your plan:

S CO P E :
Determining the scope of your Business Continuity
Programme is the first step in creating a workable BC Plan.
It is important to ensure you understand the drivers behind
identifying what is included and excluded from the scope
to ensure effective deployment of resources. Deciding what
products and services should be included in the scope can
be driven by:
• Customer requirements
• Legal and regulatory requirements
• High risk locations – physical threats or proximity
to industrial premises
• High income-generating product or service

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 B U S I N E SS I M PACT A N A LYS IS:
Based on the scope of your programme, the next step is
to identify the critical processes within scope as part of
the Business Impact Analysis (BIA). This can be done at
a strategic level then filter down to an operational level
where the systems and people who support those critical
processes are identified.
In order to prioritise critical processes for inclusion in the
BCP, it is essential to understand how long the business
can survive without those processes and/or systems before
the disruption becomes intolerable – this is known as the
Maximum Acceptable Outage (MAO).
More analysis needs to be carried out on how long that
particular process or system takes to recover – ideally this
should be less that the MAO.
B U S I N E SS P R O C E SS / E ST. R E V E N U E E ST I M AT E D
SYST E M LOSS P E R DAY R E COV E RY T I M E
Rating scale: 1 = Very Low 2 = Low 3 = Medium 4 = High
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If not, the organisation needs to set some Recovery Time
Objectives (RTOs) and take action to bring the RTO to well
within the MAO.
Some consideration should also be given to how much
data loss is acceptable to the business and targets set
to minimise the impact of data loss – this is known as
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and will determine your
backup and recovery procedures.
List here your critical processes and underlying systems
and the impact of their loss:
RTO RPO PRIORITY
5 = Very High
 T H R E AT A N A LYS IS:
Now you have determined the scope and identified critical Below are the most common threat events that have
processes and systems, the next step is to analyse potential materialised for Interactive’s customers. You can use the
threats to those processes/systems. Threat analysis uses list as a start to determining your own threat analysis and
common risk identification and assessment techniques to mitigation strategy.
understand unacceptable concentrations of risks or single Use a risk rating that does not over-emphasise the impact
points of failure that could jeopardise critical business of minor events (i.e. should a low probability/high impact
processes. Threat analysis should take into account people, event have the same significance as a high probability/low
premises, resources and suppliers. impact event?)
Threats can be different from one organisation to
another however there are some common threats that all
organisations face. These range from natural events such
as a flood, fire, earthquakes, to human error, sabotage,
cyber-attacks, power failure, no site access etc.

T H R E AT PROBABILITY I M PACT R AT I N G M I T I GAT I O N OT H E R CO NS I D E R AT I O NS

Flood

Loss of power

Loss of comms

No site access

OH&S events

Rating scale: 1 = Very Low 2 = Low 3 = Medium 4 = High 5 = Very High

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 R E COV E RY S O LU T I O NS:
How can you recover if a threat materialises? Having a Are there any single points of failure in your technology
recovery solution in place is key. Essentially this is your infrastructure as well as in your processes and people?
back-up plan. What’s yours? For example, do you have
insurance? Is your data backed up and easily recoverable?

T H R E AT R E COV E RY P L A N E ST I M AT E D R E S P O NS I B I L I T Y ACT I O N P O I N T
R E COV E RY T I M E

E.g. Disruption to call
centre and/or staff
Loss of data
• contact insurance 2-4 weeks • IT manager to make • Delegate personnel
provider to make a insurance claim to manage
claim • HR to manage relationship and
• re-locate call centre relocation of staff contracts with
staff to office recovery insurance provider
stations • Call centre staff
to resume day-to-
day operations at
recovery office station

Breach of security

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 S U P P L I E RS A N D K E Y CO N TACTS:
It will be important for you to put a team in place to
manage rapid recovery in the case of an emergency.
A team will be able to see the gaps that need to be
filled as they put the pieces back in place.
Who do you need to contact in case of an emergency?
What are the first steps to take to mitigate further disaster
and to start righting the ship?

P R OV I D E R T Y P E K E Y CO N TACT A LT E R N AT E CO N TACT N OT E S
& D E TA I LS & D E TA I LS

Insurance

Security

Telecommunications
provider

BC provider

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K E Y I N T E R N A L CO N TACTS:
Keep all internal contacts in one sheet and identify key roles
and responsibilities of individuals involved in the recovery of
a business.

ROLE TEAM MEMBER CO N TACT A LT E R N AT E R O L E S & R E S P O NS I B I L I T I E S

I N VO LV E D D E TA I LS CO N TACT
E.g. BC Team John Smith - BC John Smith Jane Doe In the declaration of a disaster, BC team will
Manager jsmith@example. jdoe@example. liaise with key internal and external folders
Jane Doe - BC com com to implement BCP
Advisor 0412 345 678 0412 345 678 They will officially declare a disaster and be
the main point of contact.

Protect your business, staff and customers.

In the event of a major disruption, every business will have specific needs to restore
its day to day business operations. Interactive offers alternative premises, system
restoration and backup solutions.
Talk to an expert about your Business Continuity needs today by clicking the button
below or call us at 1300 584 644.

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