BSI EHS ConsultingBusiness continuityand emergencyresponse guidebsiReady or notYour business faces more risks today than ever before:cyberattacks can shut down operationsovernight,supply chain failures can halt production,extreme weather events like floods and hurricanescan damage infrastructure,and chemical incidents can harm not just your people but the environment.The question isn't if disruption will happen,but when.BSI Consulting's business continuity and emergency preparedness experts can help you develop acomprehensive plan that keeps your organization running no matter what comes your way.Context and impact:Where to beginContext drives the planning process.Key questions about how and why you are creating the plan willdetermine what the plan looks like.A core question to consider for continuity planning is what level ofimpact you think the organization can withstand.Using that as a starting point helps to prioritize yourplanning process and what a response may look like to preserve operations and mitigate impacts beforeyou get to that point of no return.A second concern is to think about whether you are planning for direct/primary impacts from an incidentor if you are planning for indirect/secondary impacts.Some examples of organizations that have primary impacts from an incident may be those in a disasterarea (floods in Texas,wildfires in California,or coastal storms in Florida).Secondary impacts may becompanies that are supplied by organizations in the area-think manufacturing,supply chains,or evenemployee commutes that rely on those geographies.Organizations with primary impacts should focus first on life safety and then consider how they willprioritize recovery efforts to start resuming operations.Organizations that are subject to secondary or later impacts should consider the measures they need totake to maintain the organization or minimize losses over the short,medium,or long term.For an organization that is suffering the most severe effects,the ability to provide its goods or services isgoing to largely dictate the nature of its response.For these organizations,there will be an array ofconcerns added on top of the risks experienced by organizations that are not directly connected to theemergency.For example,one major concern in a crisis is a run on resources.During a global outbreak or majornatural disaster event,a company manufacturing N95 masks may experience much larger demand andtherefore need to conduct internal planning and decision-making sessions to discuss how to increasesupplies,raise awareness of counterfeit products,secure against theft of products,and strategicallydistribute the supplies to healthcare providers and institutions in need.