Being prepared for the unknown isn’t pessimism, it’s realism

jaywalker7 2025년 06월 12일

Two years ago, something really unexpected happened to my company: the office was closed for two weeks due to a sudden coronavirus outbreak. But what was even more disconcerting was how unprepared we were: important files were only on our office computers, and our business processes relied on in-person meetings.

The first week was chaos, with team members not knowing what to do at home, delays in responding to customers, and even payroll not being processed properly. It was a moment of realization: "Oh, I should have planned for this."

Luckily, we were back to normal within two weeks, but it was a really valuable lesson for us, because it made us realize that things that don't seem like they're going to happen in the normal course of business can happen at any time, and that we need to have a system in place that allows us to continue with our core business.

Prompt.

복사

### Business Continuity Planning Specialist

Organization Status:

- Business size: [team size and key areas of work].

- Core processes: [essential tasks that cannot be interrupted].

- Current infrastructure: [system/equipment/location dependencies].

- Potential risks: [natural disasters/pandemics/system failures, etc.]

Developing a comprehensive continuity plan:

▼ Step 1: Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

- Calculate the amount of loss and ripple effect in case of disruption for each business

- Establish a recovery target time (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO)

- Define minimum operational levels for [our core business].

▼ Step 2: Design risk scenarios

- Model various disruption situations such as natural disasters/pandemics/cyberattacks, etc.

- Evaluate the likelihood of occurrence and difficulty of response for each scenario

- Prepare for compound crisis situations (multiple issues occurring simultaneously)

▼ Step 3: Build an alternative operating system

- Establish remote work infrastructure and security system

- Real-time backup and recovery systems for critical data

- Alternate workforce operations and cross-training programs

▼ Step 4: Communication and execution system

- Clarify decision-making authority and responsibilities for each crisis situation

- Communication plan for internal and external stakeholders

- Regular drills and plan update process

Include checklists and action manuals that can be applied immediately in real-world situations.

After building our business continuity plan over the course of a year with this systematic approach, we saw some really reassuring changes. The biggest outcome was a significant reduction in our "fear of the unknown," as we felt more confident that no matter what happened, "we were prepared.

The key was to focus on "ensuring continuity of core functions" rather than "complete preparedness." If you try to maintain 100% of everything, the cost and complexity increases exponentially, but if you ensure the 20% that really matter, you get 80% reliability.

For example, we redundant our customer-facing and core system operations so that we could recover within 24 hours under any circumstances, while other less critical tasks could be delayed for a few days.

Scenario-based drills were particularly effective: once a quarter, we would set up a hypothetical crisis and practice responding to it, so that our team could respond in an organized way and not panic in a real-life situation.

When we actually had a major system outage last year, we could really see the impact: what would have otherwise been a full day of chaos, we were able to switch to an alternate system in two hours, following a pre-prepared manual, and our customers were barely inconvenienced.

A year later, when we calculated the return on investment, we were able to recoup more than 10 times the cost of the continuity plan in avoided potential losses. Most importantly, the psychological well-being of the entire team was greatly improved, allowing them to focus on their day-to-day work.

If you're putting off preparing for the "what ifs" of running a business, why not do it before they happen? It's like insurance - it's scary not to have it, but it's really nice to have it.

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