Business Resilience Planning Training

Updated July 2025

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Future-Proof Your Business: Your Plan to Beat Disruptions & Protect Your Profits

In an unpredictable world, SMEs are constantly vulnerable to disruptions like power outages, cyberattacks, and staff unavailability, which can cause severe financial and reputational damage. This course offers vital tools — the Business Impact Analysis (BIA), Business Continuity Plan (BCP), and IT Disaster Recovery Plan (IT DRP) — to proactively manage these risks, ensuring business continuity and enabling long-term success. Resilience planning is no longer a choice, but a necessity for survival and growth.

High-Level Outline:

  1. The Resilience Mindset - Why This Matters to YOU
  2. Your "What If" Map: The Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
  3. Your Action Playbook: The Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
  4. Your Tech Lifeline: The IT Disaster Recovery Plan (IT DRP)
  5. Keeping It Alive: Testing, Maintenance & Continuous Improvement

Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Understand the fundamental concepts of business resilience and its importance for SME survival and growth.
  • Identify the key components of a comprehensive business continuity framework (BIA, BCP, IT DRP).
  • Conduct a basic Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to identify critical business processes, assess potential impacts, and define recovery objectives.
  • Outline key elements of a Business Continuity Plan (BCP), including team roles, communication strategies, and alternate worksite considerations.
  • Grasp essential principles of IT Disaster Recovery Planning (IT DRP), with a focus on practical backup strategies and recovery testing for SMEs.
  • Recognise the value of ongoing testing, maintenance, and review of their resilience plans.
  • Appreciate how foundational resilience planning aligns with emerging regulatory trends like NIS2 and DORA (where applicable).

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, attendees will have:

  • A clear understanding of why business continuity planning is vital for their specific business context.
  • The ability to initiate a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) for their organisation using simplified templates.
  • A foundational understanding of how to structure and populate a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) relevant to their operations.
  • Practical knowledge of effective data backup and IT recovery testing strategies applicable to SME environments.
  • The confidence to engage with their team and external IT providers on resilience planning discussions.
  • Actionable next steps to begin developing or improving their own business resilience plans.
  • An awareness of the evolving landscape of digital operational resilience (e.g., NIS2, DORA) and how current planning contributes to future compliance readiness.

Additional Details:

Course Duration: 3 Hours (Flexible, can be adapted)

Included: Business Impact Analysis, Business Continuity Plan, and IT Disaster Recovery Plan templates (in Word format) and copy of the slides.

Audience: Micro/Small/Medium Business Owners/Managers or Charity Managers responsible for day-to-day operations of the business.

Capacity: Maximum 20 attendees