Did you know that many businesses implement and maintain a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) more for brand reputation and image? Brand reputation and image outweighs economic impact and regulation compliance.
Having a strong brand is vital to the financial success of a business. Information is delivered almost instantaneously through media outlets and other channels such as social media outlets where people interact in real time. Having a BCP is critical to the protection of your organization’s reputation & image.
Here are steps to assist your organization in protecting it’s reputation & image:
Prepare and protect your people – this includes,
- Physical safety and psychological well-being of employee; first priority in BCP if your employees are not taken care of, then they cannot recover and protect customer data, leaving your company at risk for elongated recovery times, customer backlash, and more susceptible to things like lost data or even security breaches.
Customer communication a must in your BCP
- Do’t assume that your customers know about any disruption you may be experiencing. If your organization engages customers in transactional exchanges your plan should address how your organization will respond to and communicate and work with customers to identify and address issues.
Evaluate your network
- What are your vendor’s business continuity capabilities, strengths, weaknesses. Your brand reputation & image can depend on their readiness. Will they be there when you need them?
It’s more than just hurricanes
- While natural disasters happen and receive great media attention, power failures, various IT outages and human error are much more likely to cause your business disruption. Be prepared for a wide range of disruptions.
Practice, Practice Practice (I’ve said this many times)
- Its only theory & books on shelves until it is tested, refined and tested again. Consistency in testing makes your organizations more likely to experience minimal downtime and more up-time in the event of a disruption – and in due course proving your organization to be more reliable to your customers, and strengthening your organization’s reputation & image.