Episode 2 - Be Ready, Stay Open - The Power of Business Continuity Planning

When disaster strikes, will your business be ready - or scrambling?

Wildfires, tariffs, equipment failures, a sick employee, even a lost shipment - small businesses face disruptions all the time. But here’s the thing: most don’t have a real plan to deal with them.

In this episode of The Green Ledger: Tips for a Sustainable Small Business, we’re digging into one of the most underrated but essential tools for small business resilience: the Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

A BCP isn’t just for big corporations. In fact, small businesses benefit the most—because every hour of downtime hurts more, and every disruption feels more personal. Whether you're a food manufacturer, coffee roaster, or apparel producer, this episode will help you get clear on how to protect your operations, team, and customer relationships when the unexpected happens.

💡 Here’s what we cover:

• What a Business Continuity Plan really is (and what it’s not)
• The 8 steps to create your own BCP - simple, clear, and totally doable
• How to identify critical functions, assess risks, assign roles, and keep stakeholders in the loop
• Common pitfalls 
• A real-world example of how a small chocolate manufacturer tailors their BCP
• Recommendations to strengthen your plan

📌 Why this matters:
This episode is about more than disruption prep - it’s about protecting your progress and building a business that can bounce back stronger. A good continuity plan doesn’t just help you survive a crisis. It helps you lead through one - with confidence.

🎯 Whether you’ve never created a BCP or have one gathering dust in a drawer, this episode will give you practical tools to take action today.

🔧 Tools and frameworks mentioned in this episode (contact me for a free copy):

• Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
• Risk Heat Mapping
• Stakeholder Communication Planning
• Post-Incident Reviews for continuous improvement

💌 Questions? Feedback? Ready to build your plan with a guide by your side?
Reach out at anca@3pimpactconsulting.com - I’d love to hear from you.

🎧 Listen now - and take the first step toward a more resilient business.

I am the founder of 3P Impact Consulting and I help small businesses build long-term resilience through sustainable practices. I adapt tools used by big corporations to fit the reality of purpose-driven small business owners - so they can grow with confidence, even in uncertain times. 

💻 Learn more about my work at www.https://3pimpactconsulting.com/services
📬 Subscribe to my blog and newsletter at https://3pimpactconsulting.com/resources

Transcript

Episode 2: Be Ready, Stay Open - The Power of Business Continuity Planning

I started to draft this episode a while ago, and then I got busy and put it aside. In the meantime the wild fires in Los Angeles (where I am based) happened, then the tariffs… and I finally said ‘that’s it’. I have to record this episode and publish it. It could give some businesses peace of mind. 

So, today, we’re diving into a powerful tool that every small business should use: a Business Continuity Plan. 

I read in an article that it is estimated that only 1 in 3 small businesses have a business continuity plan in place, and of these, only 10% have it done the right way. The rest have just a weak document that is either obsolete or not comprehensive enough. That is alarming…

So, if you are interested to revamp your business continuity plan, or create a new one, this episode is for you. We're going to break down the essentials of creating a business continuity plan for a small business.

We’re going to talk about what this plan is and why it is important.  Next we’ll go over the steps to build and maintain such a plan, pitfalls to watch for and a few recommendations on how to make it stronger. Toward the end, we’ll take a real life example and look at a business continuity plan (more specifically, what risk areas were identified) from a chocolate manufacturer perspective, showing how to tailor the process for industry and company - specific needs.

So what is a business continuity plan?
A business continuity plan (BCP) is a document that outlines the steps a business will take to continue its operations during and after a disruptive event. 

This plan includes details on essential functions, necessary systems and processes, and how to maintain them during a crisis.

Why is this plan important?
Depending on your business, a business continuity plan helps recover from supply chain disruptions, or from situations when a key employee is unable to come to work, or when you receive a cybersecurity threat, or when you experience equipment failure… and so on.

There can be many reasons to have a business continuity plan, and the most important in my opinion are in no particular order: 
● 1 is to demonstrate to your stakeholders that in the event of a disruption the business is able to continue its operations at a reasonable level, minimizing downtime and potential loss of revenue;
● 2 is to reduce legal and financial exposure, as well as the costs associated with a disruption;
● 3 is to improve credibility and reputation and preserve customer relationships, and 
● And 4 is to develop a competitive advantage.

Let’s start with a quick  personal story. Back in 2018, during one of the biggest wildfires in California, the building I was working in had to close unexpectedly. It remained closed for about three days, which took a huge toll on the company, financially and operationally. We didn’t have a business continuity plan in place, so when this disruption happened, we were scrambling to keep going. We had no processes to follow, and no plan in place.

This unfortunate event taught us an important and expensive lesson: unexpected disruptions can hit hard, and being unprepared only makes it worse. 
That motivated us to put a business continuity plan in place, and it paid off. When another major disruption came our way in 2020, we had a plan. Our continuity plan gave us clear steps, and we adjusted to the change with far less impact. Well, less impact when it comes to the day to day operations. That disruption had a huge impact on our business and the entire world.

So, why is a business continuity plan so essential? Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to disruptions. A Business continuity plan is all about creating a clear plan that allows your business to keep running - or to recover quickly - when the unexpected happens. As I mentioned, this could be anything from a natural disaster to equipment failure or a supply chain disruption.
Think of your Business continuity plan as a safety net. It minimizes downtime, protects your revenue, and keeps customers’ trust intact. 

Now, let’s talk about the main steps for creating a business continuity plan. The process doesn’t need to be overly complicated. A plan that’s simple, clear and easy to follow is much more effective than a complex, hard-to-implement document. 

Here’s how to get started:
Oh, before that, I have to mention that you decide how you want to do this, who you want to involve in the decision making process. It could be only you, the company owner, or you could gather a team of 3-4 trusted employees from critical roles to help you in this process and together to ensure there are no blind spots. 
[If you know everything in your organization, you are wearing all the hats, and you understand all the intricacies in every critical function, then maybe you can work on this step alone. On the other hand, if you are more involved in the creative process than operations, maybe it’s a good idea to form a team for this step.]

Step 1 - Pinpoint Critical Functions or to say it fancier, Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA):
First, identify the essential functions of your business that need to continue running, no matter what. This helps understand which tasks are critical and how long the business can function without these tasks. This ensures that the business focuses on maintaining operations that are vital to its overall continuity. For many businesses, this includes things like customer service, inventory management, and production. Ask yourself, “What are the core functions that must continue for us to survive a disruption?”

Step 2 - Conduct a Risk Assessment
Here you identify the main risks that could impact your business,  (you know, the essential functions you identified in the previous step). These might be natural disasters, cybersecurity threats, supply chain issues, or even health-related closures.

As I mentioned earlier, look at these risks from your business’s unique position. In some cases a uniquely skilled employee that is unexpectedly missing work is going to impact the business heavily, while in other cases other employees can fill in for the day and the businesses won’t be impacted as much. So if the uniquely skilled employee is your case, make sure you list this as a risk. 

Or, another example, if you need a special ingredient for your best selling product, and your supplier goes out of business, that’s going to impact your business a lot more than if you use an ordinary ingredient that you can easily buy from a new supplier with almost no impact on your business. So, obviously, if the special ingredient is your case, you’d list this as your risk.

Once you’ve listed potential risks, prioritize them by considering both their likelihood of happening and the impact they would have on your business. You can use a risk heat map here if you prefer. Ask me for an example if you don’t see it linked in the notes.

Ok, Step 3 -  Identify critical resources
You do an inventory of current resources and tools, and evaluate their sufficiency and see where you have gaps.. Make sure you look at people resources (I could say human resources, but this implies employees, and I don't want to limit this), but also technical resources. Identify key personnel,  and any tools/software needed. Assess dependencies on vendors. Don’t forget about seasonal processes. Anything specific to them - you need to make sure you include that in your plan. Once you identify the gaps, address them.

Step 4 -  Create Your Actionable Plan
Now that you have determined the key risks, essential functions and resources needed, it’s time to map out actionable steps. For each type of disruption, outline specific steps to maintain/resume operations. For instance, if a specialty supplier becomes unavailable, do you have an alternative? Write down what to do in each scenario in clear, easy-to-follow language.

Step 5 - Assign Roles and Responsibilities
You have an actionable plan, now you have to make sure that your employees know their roles. Assign specific tasks to key individuals + at least 1 backup, and train them properly, so they’re ready to jump in if a disruption occurs. This way, everyone knows who’s responsible for what, and can act quickly. 

Step 6 -  Communication and Stakeholder Management
Let’s talk about communication. Clear communication can make or break your plan. Set up internal protocols for quickly notifying your employees, and establish an external communication plan to keep customers and partners informed. This includes identifying key contacts, setting up communication channels (such as email, phone, or messaging apps, or even social media), and creating templates for emergency messages. 

[As you imagine, the situation is pretty hectic in case of a disruption. You don’t want to waste precious time and think of what to write and how to formulate to sound professionally. Or who to include in your communication. Or, in case of a cyberthreat, when you probably want to turn off your computers, and you need to use your personal phone for communications, you don’t want to waste time by searching for contact names and phone numbers. You want to have everything as much as possible ready to send.)

It’s good to also establish relationships ahead of time with your partners to ensure resource availability on their end. This is especially important if a disruption could impact your delivery times or product availability.

Your customers will appreciate honesty, even if it’s just letting them know you’re working on a solution. Proactive communication keeps customer trust strong, which is essential during uncertain times.

Step 7 - Testing
A continuity plan is only useful if it’s kept active and relevant. One great way to ensure this, is through testing. Run mock drills with your employees to see how well the plan holds up and to identify any weak areas. These drills can be as simple as a table-top exercise where you walk through a disruption scenario. These exercises should be conducted periodically and reviewed afterward to make necessary adjustments. Continuous testing builds confidence and ensures the team can respond swiftly and efficiently in a real emergency.

Step 8 - Maintaining and Updating the Business Continuity Plan
As I said before, a good Business continuity plan is a living document. Make sure to review and update it regularly—ideally quarterly or anytime your business undergoes significant changes in the operating environment, such as new technologies, personnel changes, or emerging risks. 

Always do a post-mortem analysis, or a look back, or a lesson learned list, however you want to call it. After experiencing a disruption, and again, this may be a power outage, a cyberattack, facility lockdown, you should conduct a thorough review to identify what worked well in your plan and what didn’t. 

For example, if communication channels failed, the team might implement additional or alternative methods. Documenting the incident, analyzing the response, and gathering feedback from all team members helps refine the Business Continuity Plan. Continuous learning from real incidents ensures the plan remains robust and effective in future emergencies.

Let’s put some of this into practice:  

Imagine you’re running a small chocolate manufacturing business. How would you approach identifying the risk areas? This is a quick list I put together, it is by no means a comprehensive list. Each business is unique. You need to look at your business and come up with your own list of critical functions and roles that need to be covered in the plan.

There are some general  factors that most companies need to consider, and then there are the specific ones that companies in a particular industry share. And of course, there are a few unique to your company. 

General factors - 4
● Key Employee Unavailability: Imagine your specialized employee becomes suddenly unavailable due to illness or personal emergencies. A continuity plan ensures that their responsibilities are documented and that a backup employee is trained to step in temporarily.
● Cybersecurity Threat: Data breaches or ransomware attacks can disrupt operations and erode customer trust. A continuity plan should outline steps like backing up critical data, ensuring cyber insurance coverage, and having IT support on-call to restore operations quickly.
● Utility Outages: A sudden loss of power, water, or internet could halt business operations. Your Business continuity plan should include backup solutions like alternative work locations, generators, or prepaid mobile hotspots for communication continuity.
● Natural Disasters: Events like floods, earthquakes, or severe weather can disrupt business for days. A continuity plan should address how to secure the physical workspace, communicate with stakeholders, and manage operations remotely if needed.

Industry specific factors - 3
● Supply Chain Flexibility: A chocolate manufacturer relies heavily on specific ingredients like cocoa and sugar. So, your Business Continuity Plan should include backup suppliers for each key ingredient. This way, if a primary supplier can’t deliver, you have a plan to keep production going.
● Protecting Temperature-Sensitive Inventory: Chocolate is sensitive to temperature, so a power outage could have a serious impact. In this case, your continuity plan might include renting backup generators or arranging secondary storage options to protect inventory and prevent spoilage.
● Specialized equipment malfunction: For a small chocolate company, specialized equipment like tempering machines is essential. Keeping a small emergency fund for repairs or securing maintenance contracts can ensure you’re not caught off guard by equipment failure.

Company specific factors - 2
● Specialty ingredient sourcing: You use a special ingredient in one of your recipes, and you import this from Europe. As most specialty ingredients, this particular ingredient comes from a niche supplier and can have unpredictable availability. Your plan should cover what to do if your niche supplier is not able to supply your specialty ingredient.
● Holiday/seasonal packaging: Seasonal and holiday packaging is a major driver of sales. If a packaging supplier experiences delays or stock shortages, it could derail an entire seasonal product line. Again, your plan should have instructions on how to handle this.

So far we covered what a business continuity plan is, why it is important, the 8 steps to create such a plan, and a real life example of what risk areas a small chocolate manufacturer has to address in their plan. 

Next, we’ll talk about common pitfalls and my recommendations for a strong plan.

Common pitfalls to avoid include 
1. overcomplicating the plan: don’t over complicate the plan; i have seen a plan so complicated that the person explaining it to me got lost in all the details, dense text, complex color coding, visuals… Details, color coding and visuals are good, but presented in a way that helps the user, not cause frustration
2. neglecting regular updates:  this is not one of those cases where you ‘set and forget’; having a business continuity plan in place offers peace of mind, but having one that is old, will do more bad than good. You’ll have fake peace of mind, and if something happens and you rush to implement it, you see that it is old and obsolete. Put it in your calendar to review it at least high level monthly, quarterly in a little more detail, and once every 6 months review it against your business environment
3. forgetting about supply chain dependencies: I’m going to refer here to your supply chain, but this can be translated into other areas as well, it’s the same principle: so, supply chain. If it is relevant to your business, you include it in your risk areas, and you have an action plan for when disruptions happen. But what about your supplier’s suppliers? Are they having plans in place for their business continuity? What are they doing to prevent disruptions in their business? You are as strong as your weakest link, how they say. Identify your weakest link and address it.

I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I would give a few recommendations to make your plan stronger. Here they are:
1. This may be implied, but I have to say it. The business owner plays a critical role in developing and implementing a BCP. They are responsible for guiding the risk assessment and business impact analysis, ensuring that the plan aligns with overall organizational goals, and securing necessary resources. They must also communicate the importance of the BCP to their team. The business owner’s commitment is crucial for promoting a culture of readiness and resilience.
2. Assign a champion—an experienced team member—to take ownership of your Business Continuity Plan. Their role is to monitor changes in the operating environment, suggest necessary updates, ensure staff are trained, and oversee regular testing. While the business owner remains a key stakeholder, they’re often pulled in many directions. A dedicated champion helps keep the Business continuity plan active and effective.
3. And lastly, keep a copy of the plan printed on paper, so a hard copy, in an easy to access location. Keep 2 more copies offsite, at separate locations, maybe one at home and one at another employee’s home. Also keep digital copies offsite (in places not connected to the network). When you update the plan, make sure you replace or update  all these copies.

Okay, let’s recap. The steps to create a business continuity plan are:
1 Pinpoint Critical Functions
2 Conduct a risk assessment
3 Identify critical resources
4 Create your actionable plan
5 Assign Roles and Responsibilities
6 Communication and stakeholder management
7 Testing 
8 Maintain and Update the Business Continuity Plan

Avoid the common pitfalls: 1. Don’t make your plan too complicated, 2. don’t neglect regular updates and 3. don’t forget about the supply chain dependencies.

My recommendations: 1. the business owner HAS to be involved; 2. assign a champion to be responsible for the plan and 3. keep copies of your plan onsite and offsite and also in digital format and paper format.

So as you see, a business continuity plan is one of the most valuable tools a small business can have. It gives you confidence, helps you bounce back quickly, and shows your stakeholders (customers, employees, lenders, vendors, community) that you’re reliable - even when the unexpected happens.

If you don’t yet have a BCP, consider taking the first step by conducting a simple risk assessment and identifying your critical functions. Then follow the steps we covered to create a simple and effective business continuity plan. 

If you have one, congratulations! I trust that you did not just set it up and then forgot about it. Do you know when was the last time you reviewed it? If more than 3 months ago, give it a read, update as needed and don’t forget to run some drills.

I hope you won’t ever need to use it, but for your peace of mind, make sure you have a current business continuity plan in place.