Expert reflects on the importance of a business continuity plan
As the Auckland region prepares for another two weeks of lockdown, advisers have been putting their well-tried BCPs into practice - however, since a BCP is going to be a key part of getting a full license, experts say it is a good idea to review them regularly and make sure they contain everything essential to getting through a disruption.
Rosewill Consulting director Karty Mayne recently talked to FSC members about the importance of a BCP, and she said the current lockdown is a good time to reflect on where your BCP served its purpose, and where it could be improved.
“There are three components of a BCP - first, what you do in that emergency phase when something happens,” Mayne said.
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“In this case, what did you do quickly to prepare for the lockdown? Were you caught short, did you have everything you needed? Or did you need to flee back to the office and pick up that extra laptop?”
“Then you’ve got the business continuity side which is all about running your people, your business and your clients, and keeping everything up and running while you’re going through that emergency phase,” she explained.
“And finally, the disaster recovery. If your IT systems go down and you can’t access your technology, for example, then what is your process to recover all of that?”
“Planning for these events - natural disasters, cyber security breaches, virus outbreaks, etc - is just critical, because these events are happening all the time,” Mayne said.
“Planning for it in advance helps you maintain your business and customers for the long term, so it’s important for all licensed advisers to have that as a key mitigant for these types of business risks.”
Mayne said that ultimately, a disruptive event is the only way to truly test how effective a BCP is, and she encouraged advisers to use the current outbreak as a learning experience to further future-proof their businesses.
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“From my experience, practice is the way to go,” Mayne said.
“You don’t really know what you’re going to face until you face it, and you don’t know where the gaps and weaknesses are in your plan until you’ve road tested it several times.”
“The FMA gives a good list of things that you might want to include in your BCP, and the thing I always find the most helpful is around how I can contact people quickly and easily if something happens,” she explained.
“Of course, you need to think about what your clients might need help with during that time as well, and you should have a way of getting key messages out, whether that’s via a Facebook post, a text, or an automated message.
“We’re living our BCP at the moment, there’s nothing like COVID-19 to be a live test of that and to iron out some of the kinks.
