What is a PCA?

A business continuity plan is a strategy put in place to responding to identified risks. It relies on resources and procedures defined in advance to respond to the situation encountered.

The objective of the BCP is to reduce the impact of a disaster on the operation of the company and to return to a stable level of activity as soon as possible.

This plan evolves for the company based on:

• its resources;
• its objectives;
• its obligations;
• its partners;
• risk assessment.

In order to ensure effective implementation of the BCP, each stakeholder needs to understand the purpose of their company.

Failure to establish a business continuity plan exposes the company to risks such as human or financial losses, a deterioration of its image or an inability to meet legal obligations for example.

How to develop a BCP?

In its guide, the General Secretariat of Defense and National Security recommends that measures to develop a BCP:

1. analyze the background and define the company's objectives;
2. identify continuity needs and the human and financial consequences of a business interruption;
3. identify, analyse and assess priority risks;
4. optimize the continuity plan strategy by selecting the scenarios to be taken into account;
5. formalize the means to ensure business continuity (human resources, information and communication systems, processes and flows, infrastructure, partners, etc.);
6. define the continuity strategy;
7. structure the stages of crisis management (anticipation, detection, qualification, alert);
8. drafting the continuity plan and its documentation (which must be clear);
9. verifying the availability of the necessary resources in the event of activation of the business continuity plan.

There is also a need to continuously improve the BCP and raise employee awareness of good behavior.