Need a bone to throw at a customer (Business Continuity/Contingency Plan)

[Wes Bucey]

Money is the only way to handle such issue.

Really? If all of your data is wiped out and no backups exist, how is money gonna help? Unless it is enough to pay-off all the resulting damages and lawsuits and help you build a new business to start over, money alone is not the answer.

Mike is on track here. All organizations, from one man or mom and pop operations up to giant transnational megacorporations, need to have contingency plans if some event outside of its [their] control occurs to interrupt their business.

Often, the ability to

1. envision such events,
2. assess probability of occurrence,
3. estimate cost to cure,
4. make provision for insurance or reserve fund to cover cost to cure
5. design an orderly business exit plan if cost to cure is too egregious to cover

is beyond the ability of anyone currently on staff, leading to the reason companies hire consultants to help formulate such contingency plans. Some consulting firms incorporate contingency planning in EVERY contract, while some specialists ONLY perform contingency planning.


Many small operations can get free or low cost help from insurance brokers and insurance companies by getting typical "laundry lists" of contingencies common to the small company's industry and working through that list to determine what specifically applies to them and work from there. The decision whether to self-insure (create reserve accounts to cover such contingencies) or purchase outside insurance is all part of the process of contingency planning.

 

[kgott]

First of all its funtastic to see the cove back on line again.

Just in case it might help, a likelihood vs consequence matrix used in safety can also be used to assess the likelihood of events occurring that would disrupt business continuity and it can be used to assess their impact on the business too.