A few years ago business continuity planning were mere buzz words — now everyone’s doing it. There is, however, a big difference between having a great business continuity plan on paper and actually ensuring that the business survives through disaster.

Oliver Laloux, Business Unit Leader, Strategic Risk Consulting, a division of Alexander Forbes Risk Services, has been helping companies develop business continuity plans for several years.

“The average plan costs in the region of R100 000. A pretty expensive paperweight if, when things do go wrong, staff are not trained in crisis management.”

In short, no matter how good your plan is on paper if people don’t react correctly when things go wrong the plan is meaningless.

Proper reaction unlikely

“And lets face it”, says Laloux, “It is highly unlikely that people’s reaction will be spot on unless they have been trained how to react.”

For example, a typical business continuity plan makes provision for the board or executive response team to meet at a venue close to or associated with the business to roll out their strategy in the event of disaster. However, if the whole factory or block burns down the alternate venue may burn down too.

Continuity management plans typically assign particular roles to everyone in the event of a disaster. If these roles differ from what people do on a daily basis it is unlikely that people will be able to carry out their assigned functions when things go wrong.

Laloux offers an example, “If the accountant is made Fire Warden and Evacuation Officer, but has never had any training he or she is likely to make mistakes in the event of having to evacuate personnel from the building during a fire.”

Another classic example of where the most professionally constructed business continuity plans depart from reality is record keeping during disasters.

“Knowing that R2-million was spent on the third day of a mine collapse and who authorised it is essential several months down the line when the business is dealing with the financial implications of the disaster,” says Laloux.

If an accurate record of events and decisions is not kept throughout the disaster, the chances of remembering actions and explaining decisions taken under pressure at a later date are very slim.

“Typically most business continuity plans detail a senior secretary as chief record keeper during disasters. But disasters don’t happen at nine on a Monday morning or end at five that afternoon,” says Laloux.

If the senior secretary has children at school or a partner and family at home to feed he or she might not be available for 72 hours straight from, say, four in the morning on a Saturday.

Furthermore, most business continuity plans fail to appreciate that disasters can go on for weeks and even months. As such, very few plans stipulate that person A will fill role X for the first 12 hours and will then be replaced by person B for the next 12 hours and so on.

“A good continuity plan needs to make allowance for the right people with the right skills at the right place and time 24/7 for as long as it takes,” says Laloux.

And the only way you are going to achieve this is to train your people in real life disaster simulations.

Simulating disasters to test your plan is a valuable exercise

“Simulating various disasters in your work place and then seeing where your business continuity plan works and where it is hopelessly flawed is a valuable exercise,” continues Laloux.

There are simulated disaster courses where everyone from fire, financial, structural, medical, transport and media experts are brought in to help simulate the reality of various disaster situations. People are specifically trained to carry out the roles assigned to them in the company’s business continuity plan.

For example, says Laloux, “If one of your trucks ploughs into a public space and kills people, the press will be at your door in minutes. Having people trained in responsible and sensitive communication should a tragedy of this nature strike is essential."

Similarly, communication with other stakeholders is also critical and the business continuity plan needs to assign various communication roles.

Another example Laloux looks at is using different communication technologies in disaster situations.

“When a major disaster happens, like the London train bombings, flooding, hurricanes or civil unrest, mobile phone networks generally crash due to overload as people call loved ones to establish their whereabouts and safety. Yet very few disaster management plans make provision for satellite phones stored in different locations. It is important that, no matter what happens, the business can still communicate with critical personal, key stakeholders (especially shareholders) as well as government and emergency services.”

The point of actually training people to deliver what appears in their disaster management plan makes the difference between the business continuity plan being an expensive paperweight or a critical business resource in the event of disaster.