What is Business Continuity Planning?
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a planning process that results in a collection of resources, actions, procedures and information that ensures that Suffolk University’s schools and departments continue to operate under adverse circumstances. BCP focuses on those business functions that are critical to the success of the University. The BCP plans are developed, tested, reviewed on a regular basis, updated, and held in readiness for use in the event of a major disruption of the University’s operations.
What is Suffolk Ready?
Suffolk Ready is our version of an organized toolkit to help us develop our BCP plans.
What is the Purpose of Business Continuity Planning?
- Safeguard human life
- Sustain essential departmental functions under negative circumstances
- Increase survivability of critical equipment and records
- Minimize business damage and loss
- Steer orderly response and recovery from incidents
- Support survivability of the University
How We Develop Business Continuity Plans
The BCP process starts with each department entering the following information in the Suffolk Ready website, which will walk you through answering questions and filling in the information:Identify Critical Functions
Identify and list your department’s critical functions
Identify and list key personnel who perform those functions
Identify and list resources required to perform those functions
Rank the criticality of functions according to a scale standardized for use across the University
Identify the peak period for each identified function
Identify and list other departments whose reduced functioning would seriously impair your department’s ability to perform each critical function
Identify other departments that would be seriously impacted if your department could not perform an identified critical function
Identify consequences of failure of each critical function
Identify strategies to overcome various conditions that may be present in the weeks or months following an incident so that your department can continue to perform identified critical functions (examples: prolonged loss of workspace due to a fire, or 50% reduction in staff for six weeks due to an influenza pandemic)
The three steps above are the basis for your BCP. The final step is to work with the Emergency Manager to test your plan to evaluate its effectiveness, as well as identify any areas that may need further review and revision.
The University’s Emergency Manager and primary contact for Business Continuity Planning is John DeSilva. John’s office is located on the 13th floor of 73 Tremont St. He can be reached at extension 4182, or email@example.com.