Can Business Continuity Be a Tool to Minimise the Impact of Political Unrest?

In today's day and age, creating a stable business might be more challenging than ever before. As more and more citizens expand their awareness of socio-economic issues, they often reach different conclusions than people in charge. It may lead to vigorous protests and considerable political unrest. Unfortunately, businesses often become the unplanned victims of these social tensions.

Many companies opt to mitigate the impact of large-scale incidents by turning to business continuity. It allows them to quickly deal with potential threats and maintain a smooth flow of operations even in times of political uncertainty. As a result, while their competitors do whatever is in their power to stay afloat, they can limit the adverse effects of disruption and go back to doing business as usual.

Here is a short explanation of how a well-thought-out business continuity plan can help organisations deal with potential risks created by political unrest.

What Is Business Continuity Management?

Business continuity (BC) is the capability of an organisation to recover following a disruptive event. It includes creating a plan of action to prepare an organisation for difficult situations and aims at maintaining critical business functions or resuming them as fast as possible. While many business continuity plans focus on disaster recovery, it is not the only part of business continuity management, which also includes crisis management and emergency response, among other things.

How Can a Business Continuity Plan Help Maintain Business Processes?

Organisations that adopt even a few of the best business continuity practices have a considerable edge over those that do not because they always have a plan to follow in case of an unexpected event. Overall, a company that has prepared a clear cut BC plan can significantly speed up its recovery process and continue to deliver products or services to its customers and vendors.

Conversely, a small business that does not have any sort of business continuity planning runs the risk that various disruptions (natural disasters or the effects of political unrest) will damage the entire organisation's infrastructure. It is a telltale sign of bad leadership and poor foresight, which may even doom the organisation.

What Should a Business Continuity Planning Include?

Creating every BC plan should start with identifying critical functions. The senior management needs to determine crucial components tied to the organisation's success it can be anything from distribution systems to communication technology. Doing this helps to re-establish full function to the business much faster.

The next step is to outline procedures and instructions everyone at the company needs to follow in case of a disaster. It is a vital part both of business continuity and risk mitigation. Employees should have training exercises to learn what they need to do after a disaster has occurred.

Finally, testing is required to ensure that all departments and business units are ready to face the challenge. An organisation may test how well the team follows a disaster recovery plan by making a disaster simulation. It is an excellent way to check if recovery strategies and solutions that are put in place actually work.

The Bottom Line

With many people willing to oppose the government, various disruptions can happen to any business at the most unfortunate of times. As multiple organisations struggle with data loss and other threats created by political unrest, it seems that subjects such as risk management and business continuity will only grow in importance.

Business continuity allows organisations to mitigate the effects of the crisis and maintain operations. It addresses all the critical processes, from the human resources team to the technology department. Nevertheless, it is an evolving process that requires frequent changes to stay efficient. As such, businesses have to constantly search for the best framework to maintain business functions and continue to operate in the face of the upcoming threats.