Business continuity, or recovery, is the next step for your business after an emergency incident has occurred. The quicker you can get your business up and running again, the more easily you can get the cash flowing back into the business to fund staff wages and other overheads.

This, too, requires some good advanced planning to get critical systems, property and operations in working order as soon as possible after an emergency.

Developing a business continuity plan involves identifying what you would need to do if an emergency occurred in order to:

• Repair or replace damaged equipment and infrastructure
• Relocate the business to an alternate location, or identify new sites to conduct visitor activities
• Temporarily contract operations
• Multi-skill staff
• Upload computer systems with backed up data
• Provide or arrange for a range of services for staff, which may include counselling and taking time off
• Communicate with employees, customers and suppliers

The plan should specify what should be done in response to the above points, who will do it and when.

Refer to your risk management plan (Find a risk management plan template in the Resources section) to identify what is important to your business to keep it running and offering its primary services. This will give you a strong indication of what you should focus on to get your business operational again.

According to the publication, Good Security, Good Business, prepared by the Australian Government (2008), this might involve:

• Developing relationships with more than one business or supplier, so that if one is affected by an incident your business can continue as usual.
• Having backup processes in place for key business documents and information. Consider keeping copies of invoices, customer records, bank account details and insurance policies that are vital to your business.
• Locating this information at a second site and update it regularly.
• Planning for disruptions to electricity, gas, water, sewerage and telecommunications systems. Are backup systems available? Are there alternatives that can be used?
• Preparing for broken machinery, damaged equipment and computer systems. Know who can fix them and have their contact details at hand.

Thinking about having another site you could operate your business from.

Make checklists. This can help you work out the most important actions to take.