Business is not the thing to be done with a momentary sentiment, whimsical or any irrational thoughts. It needs deep thinking necessary investment, analysis and good judgement. any business started without thinking deeply may largely doom to failure or lead towards loss. So business entrepreneurs should think seriously about different factors before deciding to start a business. The main factors to be considered before starting business are as follows:
1) selection of business
2) Detailed investigation and research
3) Forms of Business Organization
4) Provision of capital
5) Location of Business
6) Office Materials and Equipment
7) Government Policy
1) selection of business
The specialised nature of business continuity means that many organisations need to utilise the skills of a dedicated coordinator and the resources of an external partner to ensure that business continuity arrangements are established that are appropriate, comprehensive, cost effective and practical. But choosing such a coordinator and partner is not an easy task when there are so many alternatives available, all claiming to provide the exact skills and level of service you require.
This article aims highlights the factors that need to be considered when you are selecting for these important roles.
What to look for in a business continuity coordinator
What is a business continuity coordinator? A business continuity coordinator is the designated individual who is responsible for establishing business continuity arrangements for an organisation. There are three ways this role can be fulfilled:
1. Allocate the tasks to an existing employee
2. Employ a dedicated business continuity coordinator
3. Hire a business continuity coordinator from an external organisation that specialises in business continuity management.
In many smaller organisations the first option is usually chosen, due to the nature of the business and the amount of time required putting the arrangements together. But for many organisations the cost of funding the necessary training and the time required for the employee to carry out their own job as well as the business continuity role, will mean that this option is not realistic.
Most organisations choose to either recruit a fully skilled coordinator to be a full-time employee or utilise the services of a consultant from an organisation that specialises in business continuity management. Which one of these options is ultimately selected will be dependent on whether there is enough business continuity work to keep the coordinator busy, initially creating and then maintaining and exercising the plan.
Whichever of the options are selected by your organisation, the skills required of the coordinator are the same.
Specific business continuity skills required
DRI International recommends that the following skills and attributes should be demonstrable by the person chosen:
• Project initiation and management – this will require them to establish the need for the business continuity function, including: resilience strategies, recovery objectives, business continuity and crisis management plans and including obtaining management support and organising and managing the formulation of the function or process either in collaboration with, or as a key component of, an integrated risk management initiative.
• Risk evaluation and control – the ability to determine the events and external surroundings that can adversely affect the organisation and its resources (facilities, technologies, etc.), the damage such events can cause and the controls needed to prevent or minimise the effects of potential loss. They will also need to provide cost-benefit analysis to justify investment in controls to mitigate risks.
• Business impact analysis – the need to identify the impacts resulting from disruptions that can affect the organisation and techniques that can be used to quantify and qualify such impacts. As well as identifying time-critical functions, their recovery priorities and interdependencies so that recovery time objectives can be set.
• Developing BCM strategies - determine and guide the selection of possible business operating strategies for continuation of business within the recovery point and time objective, while maintaining the organisation’s critical functions.
• Emergency response and operations - develop and implement procedures for responding to and stabilising the situation following an incident, including establishing and managing an emergency operations facility to be used as a command centre during the emergency.
• Developing and implementing business continuity and crisis management plans - designing, developing and implementing plans that provide continuity within the recovery time and recovery point objectives.
• Awareness and training programs - preparing a program to create and maintain corporate awareness and enhance the skills required to develop and implement the business continuity program or process and its supporting activities.
• Maintaining and exercising plans - pre-planning and coordinating plan exercises and evaluating and documenting plan exercise results. Developing processes to maintain current continued capabilities in accordance with the organisation’s strategic direction. Verifying that the plan will prove effective by comparison with a suitable standard and reporting the results in a clear and concise manner.
• Crisis communications - developing, coordinating, evaluating, and carrying-out plans to communicate with internal stakeholders (employees, management, etc.), external stakeholders (customers, shareholders, vendors, suppliers, etc.) and the media (print, radio, television, Internet, etc.) in the event of an interruption from a disaster.
• Coordination with external agencies - establishing applicable procedures and policies for coordinating continuity and restoration activities with external agencies (local, national, emergency responders defence, etc.) while ensuring compliance with applicable statutes or regulations.
Other skills necessary
In addition to the specific business continuity skills and experience, the multi-disciplinary nature of the job means that the individual has to posses a number of soft skills:
• Comfort in the job – a good business continuity coordinator is an evangelist for business continuity within the organisation. This means talking about it to anyone who will listen, from senior executives downwards. Everyone in the organisation will see the coordinator walking around the building and unless they are informed why, the reaction can be negative.
Internal stakeholders should be aware of the coordinator’s project before it officially begins, they must be able to talk one-on-one with individuals at their own level of comprehension.
• Curiosity – a coordinator who knows everything will certainly guarantee the plan will fail because they will make erroneous assumptions. In business continuity planning, assumptions are fatal flaws that must be avoided at all costs. Beyond assumptions, most people will not cooperate with someone who “knows everything already”. Cooperation from department subject matter experts is critical to any plan's success.
• Diplomacy - unless the coordinator is a senior director or officer of the organisation, they will have to depend on the goodwill of everybody impacted by the plan. Typically, that means operations level managers and their staff, as there must be involvement from subject matter experts if the plan is to protect the organisation as a whole.
• Documentation - business continuity planning is heavily dependant on documentation and the coordinator must be comfortable producing such deliverables. While a proposal may not be necessary, there still needs to be produced a statement of work and a project plan. The coordinator must be able to create concise documents for the responders, and must keep in mind that responder instructions may be given to someone other than the person who normally would perform the specific task, consequently details are critical.
• Marketing and selling the process - coordinators must constantly market and sell business continuity even when the function has senior management support, the coordinator needs to convince others that planning is good for them; that it protects them as individuals, protects their jobs, and it may help them get new hardware or software to enhance their efficiency and value to the organisation.
• Mentoring - subject matter experts know just about everything they need to know about their subject, but unless they also are also business continuity subject matter experts, they need direction from the coordinator. Mentoring is helping others develop skills they can use today and tomorrow.
• Organisation - a coordinator must have better-than-average organisational skills. They will be juggling multiple tasks and, in most cases, will be working in semi-isolation.
• Training - even in large organisations with training departments, coordinators still need training expertise. They must help professional trainers develop curricula. In the absence of trainers, the coordinator will need a proven methodology.
Experience
In addition to these specific business continuity skills, the ability of the coordinator to effectively relate to business stakeholders demands a significant working experience in business operations, preferably at management level.
The coordinator must apply their own experience of operational drivers, needs and problems to the business continuity planning demands of the organisation's business managers. Having 'walked the walk', the coordinator will be trusted when they 'talk the talk'.
In the final analysis, real business experience is probably more important than the individual skills described above.
What to look for in a business continuity partner
With the ever increasing number of organisations offering BC solutions it can appear difficult to differentiate the good from the indifferent. We have outlined below the factors that we believe are important and should be considered when choosing a business continuity partner.
2) Detailed investigation and research
Any business should not be started almost immediately after having it. first a detailed study and investigation should be done about the selected business. A comprehensive study and investigation should be made into the needs and wants, interests, income sources, spending habit, population structure etc. of the target customers. Similarly, detailed observation should be made about the market of the intended goods or services, nature and level of competition, techno-economic feasibility, financial analysis and cost- benefit analysis, etc. along with these aspect an in-depth analysis should be made preparing a list of possible problem to be faced by the business in the future and other positive aspects.
3) Forms of Business organization
These forms of organization refer to such aspects as ownership, risk bearing, control and distribution of profit. Any one of the above mentioned forms may be adopted for establishing a business, but usually one form is more suitable than other for a particular enterprise. The choice will depend on various factors like the nature of business, the objective, the capital required, the scale of operations, state control, legal requirements and so on.
Out of the forms of private ownership listed above the first three forms (1, 2, and 3) may be described as non corporate and the remaining ( 4 and 5 ) as corporate forms of ownership. The basic difference between these two categories is that a non-corporate form of business can be started without registration while a corporate form of business cannot be set up without registration under the laws governing their functioning.
4) provision of capital
5) Location of business
Where to start a new business? It is a tough question that often leaves an entrepreneur agonising over the decision.
A small business starting up 10-15 years ago would soon be agonising over a key decision. Where can I find some premises? What kind of premises do I need and what will they cost?
These days the decision about locating a start-up business is a very different one. It is possible to run a new business, even with several people, without ever having separate business premises.
The so-called “virtual business” is now a reality, made possible by easy communications and the enthusiasm of many people to work from home, as freelancers or consultants. Setting up a virtual business, often from home, is not without its problems. However, this is a very popular approach to locating a new business.
Not every kind of start-up can be based at home. When addressing the question of business location, the textbooks often use the example of a new retail business. For retailing, the search for a good location is vitally important.
In general, the most important consideration for a start-up is the
cost of the business location. In your exam, it is best to assume (unless you are told otherwise) that a start-up has limited financial resources and that it will seek to minimise the start-up costs. Setting up in a new business location can add significantly to overheads – a business will incur rent, rates, insurance and many other on-going costs simply from the decision to take some premises.
Whatever the business, there are several general factors that influence the choice of location. These are:
| Factor | Comments |
| Communications | This includes transport facilities (road, rail, air) as well as information infrastructure. Transport links are particularly important if the business delivers products, sells direct using a sales force or is dependent on import and export. Information technology is less of an issue these days – most start-ups can quickly establish reliable broadband Internet connections. |
| Labour | When a start-up needs to hire employees, then access to a reliable pool of staff with relevant skills is important. Businesses that are labour-intensive often look to locate in areas of traditionally low wages. |
| Market - customers & population | A start-up may need to be located near particular centres of population. For example, if the product is a service targeted at affluent older-aged people, then it is important to be located where there is a sufficient population of such people. Franchise businesses often analyse the population characteristics of a potential new territory before setting up in a new location. |
| Suppliers | The business may be dependent on supplies of a particular raw material, so costs will be lower if the business is located near the source of supply (e.g. where the raw material is grown or where a distributor is based). This factor tends to be more important for manufacturing businesses rather than service businesses. |
| Government assistance | Government policy has often been designed to influence the locations of new businesses. If the start-up is “location-independent” (i.e. the other factors above don’t really make a difference to the choice of location), then it may be that deals and incentives offered by Government can influence the choice.
Some poorer areas of the UK are designated as “assisted areas”. These include many parts of north-east England, Wales, East Yorkshire, Cornwall etc. Locating a new business in one of these areas potentially makes government grants and loans available. |
There is no magic formula which can be applied to decide the most important factors in choosing a location.
Where two possible locations have been identified, it might be that the availability of government grants or other incentives is the deciding factor.
Making a choice of location involves drawing up a list of criteria of what the start-up is looking for from business premises and then using qualitative judgement about what will work best.
6) Appointment of employees and workers
