What is a Business Contingency Plan A Step-by-Step Guide

business contingency plan example

Contingency planning makes sure the whole business stays on track no matter what. No one wants Plan A to fail—but having a strong Plan B in place is the best way to be prepared for any situation. With a solid backup plan, you can effectively respond to unforeseen events and get back on track as quickly as possible. In this sense, triggers refer to events or circumstances that prompt the need for you to use your organization’s contingency plan. A contingency plan should be looked at as a living document and updated as needed.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Companies with contingency plans at their disposal save sufficient time and maximize the implementation of the risk management plans. This easy-to-use information technology (IT) contingency plan presentation template is the perfect solution for presenting your IT contingency plan to key stakeholders. Easily gain buy-in from team members, management and other stakeholders with the all-in-one, IT-specific solution for outlining and refining your IT department’s service contingency plan. Use this simple contingency plan presentation template to highlight the details of your contingency plan to your team members and other stakeholders.

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Without that backup, the team might have to recreate the entire website from memory or build a website from scratch. That’s a significant expense and can mean several extra days (or weeks!) of downtime. The simple answer is that the only practical solution is to plan for impacts, not scenarios.

Contingency planning vs. risk management

  • You’ll need to adapt it as new risks arise and to ensure it still makes sense for your business needs.
  • Business continuity involves planning across different areas so a company can withstand and recover from disruptions.
  • A contingency plan is a proactive strategy to help you address negative developments and ensure business continuity.
  • Once you outline risks and potential threats, work with your stakeholders to identify the potential impact of each risk.
  • Standardize and simplify your process of creating contingency plans for effective preparation and response to business disruptions using contingency plan templates.

You can meet with executives and employees in order to get more a holistic picture of how events can affect your resources. Bring with you a consultant or a specialist in the identification of risks in order to be more precise. You need to minimize potential threats to your business by creating a comprehensive contingency plan for each business unit for every unforeseen event. Finally, they can highlight weaknesses in existing plans and reveal areas for improvement, ultimately strengthening readiness for future events. By confronting the ‘what-ifs,’ organisations can implement proactive strategies to manage potential risks.

Implement related projects to achieve the KPIs

  • By using these templates, you can effectively prepare for and manage potential risks, thus bolstering the resilience of your business.
  • With sections for action steps, responsible parties, stakeholders, technical issues, project requirements, and resource needs, it aids in the project’s success in handling resource constraints effectively.
  • As you’re brainstorming, involve individuals from other teams to ensure you’re preparing for risks to your entire organization and not just your department.
  • With our pre-built template, you can feel confident you’re following best practice contingency planning, so your business will run smoothly even in the case of unexpected events.
  • Once you’ve created the plan, make sure you store it in a central location that everyone can access, like a work management platform.
  • Risk management is a proactive approach that companies use to prevent loss or disasters.

Each person on your team has a very particular skill set, and it would be difficult to manage team responsibilities if more than one person left at the same time. Your contingency plan might include who can cover certain projects or processes while you hire a backfill or how to improve team documentation to prevent siloed skillsets. In the face of a global health crisis, a pandemic contingency plan is business contingency plan example vital for organizations in healthcare, retail, and manufacturing. This plan focuses on mitigation strategies to minimize operational disruptions and ensure the safety of employees while maintaining business continuity. Let’s face it—no matter how much planning goes into running a business, unexpected events can still throw everything off course.

business contingency plan example

ClickUp Contingency Plan Template

business contingency plan example

Cascade’s Reports lets you create concise strategy reports with up-to-date data and charts with a click. To build a resilient BCP, thoroughly examine your business, engage all stakeholders, and really understand your key business functions and processes. Our Business Continuity Plan Template for Telecommunications is ideal for internet service providers, telcos, and MSPs that want to keep their telecommunication services humming along, no matter what. Use it to outline strategies to reduce the risk of disruptions such as new technology, regulatory changes, and cyber-attacks.

Here’s what to know about a business contingency plan and how to develop a successful playbook—even if you hope never to use it. It’s great if you’ve created contingency plans for all the risks you found, but make sure you’re constantly monitoring for new risks. If you discover a new risk and it has a high enough severity or likelihood, create a new contingency plan for that risk. Likewise, you may look back on your plans and realize that some of the scenarios you once worried about aren’t likely to happen or, if they do, they won’t impact your team as much.

A contingency plan is a “plan B” that helps a business address specific situations or incidents that may or may not be out of its control. A contingency plan is the way that your team should react if there is something that interrupts the normal course of business. Contingency plans are often found as part of emergency planning, disaster recovery and risk management. It’s important to know how you want to proceed when the situation prevents you from running things as business as usual. A contingency plan is a proactive strategy to help you address negative developments and ensure business continuity. In this article, learn how to create a contingency plan for unexpected events and build recovery strategies to ensure your business remains healthy.