What is a Business Continuity Policy?

In business continuity management, the business continuity management system (BCMS) is key to preparing for, providing and maintaining controls and capabilities for managing an organization’s overall ability to continue to operate during disruptions.

But as important as the BCMS is, it won’t be effective without top management committing to its continual improvement.

One way they do that is by developing and communicating a business continuity policy.

So, what’s a business continuity policy? A business continuity policy is a high-level statement of the organization’s business continuity intentions and direction.

And if that seems important to you, that’s because it is. However, not many are certain what a business continuity policy is and what it does.

In the following, we provide a full definition of business continuity policy as well as strategies for developing an effective BC policy, including investing in business continuity software to streamline and automate business continuity management.

What does the business continuity policy do?

So, what does the BC policy do?

The first thing that the BC policy does is communicate from top management the following:

• The meaning and importance of business continuity management to the organization
• Top management commitment to the BCMS and its continual improvement
• Expectations for how the BCMS will be used by all workers
• The guiding principles for setting, reviewing, and meeting BCMS requirements (objectives)

From there, the BC policy is written at a level independent of the scope of the BCMS, i.e., not including any specific information, e.g., BCMS requirements, processes, or operational roles.

The BC policy is also made available as documented information to be communicated and understood by the whole organization.

How to ensure your business continuity policy is fit for purpose?

What are the parameters around the BC policy itself, though? That’s an interesting question.

BC policies will vary from organization to organization. However, there are a few considerations senior management should have in drafting a business continuity policy.

According to the experts at the Business Continuity Institute, those parameters include:

• The policy should be appropriate to the size, complexity, and type of the organizations
• The policy should be aligned with the organizational culture and operating environment
• The policy should focus on what the organization will do, now how it will be done

The difference between a business continuity policy and business continuity plan

Aren’t you just describing a business continuity plan? Not quite.

Remember, the business continuity policy focuses on what the organization will do, not how it will be done. Indeed, the BC policy is meant to facilitate the establishment of the BCMS.

However, there are certain overlaps between the BC policy and the BCP.

Both the BC policy and the BCP might include details about the roles or people with overall responsibility and accountability for the BCMS.

Both the BC policy and the BCP will demonstrate a commitment to meeting the requirements of any relevant regulations, standards, and guidelines.

Steps for developing an effective business continuity policy

A key difference between the BC policy and the BCP is how each comes together. Both will likely be written by top management with support from BC professionals.

There are, though, unique steps to developing an effective business continuity policy. Those steps include:

1. Agree and draft definitions of key terms such as business continuity and business continuity management system.
2. Draft a statement that outlines the overall purpose of the BCMS, the reason why it is important to the organizations, and the benefits it will bring.
3. Draft the rest of the policy. Make sure it includes a commitment to the BCMS and its continual improvement, expectations for how the BCMS will be used, and guiding principles for setting, reviewing, and meeting BCM objectives.
4. Consult on and finalize the draft policy according to the organization’s usual processes for establishing a policy.
5. Make the policy available as documented information, subject to the organization’s usual information management practices and controls.
6. Communicate the policy widely within the organization and make it available externally for interested parties.

Strategies for establishing an effective business continuity policy

Following these steps doesn’t necessarily ensure you’ve established an effective BC policy, though.

Teams should also consider using company-wide policy templates that are accepted and recognizable by readers. They should also consider working with communication specialists to evangelize the policy and to ensure the BC policy is readily understood.

What’s more, the final product, the BC policy, should be published on the organization’s website.

How do you know if you have an effectively communicated BC policy? Well, you will have met the following outcomes:

• Shared understanding of the importance of a BCMS and its relevance to the organization.
• Clear expectations from the employees on how they will use the BCMS.
• Demonstrations of top management commitment to the BCMS and a supporting organizational culture.

Updating a business continuity policy

What to do when facts on the ground change? Should the BC policy change, as well?

The short answer is yes, with the caveat that an effective BC policy should be sufficiently high level to not require frequent changes.

Nevertheless, any BC policy should be reviewed at agreed intervals or following significant changes to the operating context, should there be a company-wide change to risk management.

Business continuity management software

The BC policy itself might seem like a theoretical exercise. But business continuity management in general is very hands on.

Given its many components, organizations often require digital technology to help them prepare for disruption.

Providers like Noggin facilitate engagement and collaboration across all stakeholders,

ensuring a unified approach to resilience with streamlined, integrated, and automated business continuity management.

Noggin’s business continuity software relies on new technology to anticipate and identify trends as well as prevent situations that may generate an interruption.

Here are the capabilities that will leave your company more confident in business continuity:

Simplify business continuity with a unified workspace

Noggin simplifies business continuity by unifying all your activities and data from business impact analyses, dependency mapping, exercises, and recovery strategies into an integrated resilience workspace to enable streamlined and centralized management of your entire business continuity program.

Engage stakeholders with business continuity planning

Noggin facilitates collaboration and engagement across your business continuity activities, empowering stakeholders with a better understanding of risks, the potential impact of disruption, and their roles and responsibilities, fostering a greater sense of ownership and accountability for the organization’s resilience.

Gain real-time visibility into your readiness

Noggin provides real-time visibility into potential vulnerabilities, risks, and gaps to enable timely action to prevent or mitigate them. Stakeholders can test the effectiveness of the business continuity program through exercises and facilitate continuous improvement from lesson learned and insights to refine strategies and processes.

Automate key continuity tasks to save time and effort

Noggin’s powerful workflow and automation platform simplifies business continuity by streamlining time-consuming approvals to enhance operational efficiency, automating real-time notifications to ensure effective coordination of your continuity efforts, and by automating recovery strategies to improve response times.

Noggin improves efficiency and generate significant savings in response, recovery, and restoration times. Here are the features that help:

Business impact analysis (BIA)

Simplify your business impact analysis process and drive engagement across your organization using Noggin’s built-in BIA tool that guides you through the process step-by-step, ensuring your BIAs are rich with insightful data to help you truly understand how your business works.

Recovery strategies

Use a consistent recovery strategy across your organization that allows you to define your strategies, response plans, roles and responsibilities, and pre-assigned checklists. Deploy these in seconds when disruption hits, to ensure the best response.

Business continuity plans (BCP)

Replace paper-based, static business continuity plans with dynamic, digitized BCPs that ensure your plans are always up-to-date and quickly available for all your users, on any device.

Dependency mapping

Quickly identify dependencies between business activities and supporting assets or vendors and stay informed when one is at risk. Visualize and track dependencies to make informed decisions and take appropriate actions to mitigate risks effectively.

Exercises and scenario testing

Don’t wait for a real-world crisis to test your organization’s readiness. With Noggin’s exercise management solution, you can be confident that teams are prepared to handle any situation that comes their way.

Business continuity monitoring

Noggin’s flexible dashboards and analytics capabilities ensure you always cater to your unique stakeholders, increasing visibility, transparency, and appreciation of business continuity across your organization.

Analytics

Consolidate data to gain valuable insights and visualize it through interactive dashboards, enabling a proactive approach to managing business continuity processes, and uncover valuable insights for continuous improvement.

Reporting

Create custom reports that summarize historical data with the help of charts, recommendations, and automated approvals. Export these as PDF or Word documents and share with stakeholders and executives to empower informed decision-making and strengthen resilience.

Finally, a high-level statement of the organization’s business continuity intentions and direction, the business continuity policy is one of the most important aspects of business continuity about which you might not have heard.

And so, in this article, we’ve sought to explain the BC policy, its function, importance, and how to put one together.

But as important as the BC policy is, expediting business continuity with automation is just as important.

That’s where digital technology like Noggin comes in. Don’t just take our word for it, though. Have a look at Noggin’s award-winning software for yourself by requesting a demonstration.