Business Continuity Planning

Studies have shown that 40 percent of businesses struck by a serious disaster never resume operations, says Doughty. What's more, he adds, "[o]ver 25 percent of those that do manage to reopen their doors again are so weakened that they close down permanently within three years." In Business Continuity Planning, Doughty brings together contributions from disaster planning practitioners, consultants, and researchers to present a best practices-based approach to anticipating and managing major business disruptions. The list includes fires, floods, power outages, hackers, software problems, labor disputes, and even flu epidemics that wipe out half the workforce for a week. All are best met when a comprehensive business continuity plan, or BCP, is in place. Among the book's topics are: how to analyze the possibility of disasters and how they would affect business; how to build, test, maintain, and update a BCP; how to deal with emotional trauma after a disaster; and how to plan for crisis management and the recovery of operations, data, and communications.