Business Continuity Plan

Summary

This Business Continuity Plan template establishes contingency planning with respect to companies that provide their clients with mission-critical computer services. This template includes practical guidance, drafting notes, alternate clauses, and optional clauses. A business continuity plan, sometimes known as a disaster recovery plan, sets forth policies and procedures to be implemented and utilized should there be significant disruption to a company's business, to allow the company to resume providing services, and to be able to initiate and maintain communications with its customers and other critical parties. Companies may find this plan particularly useful during periods of office closures, quarantines, and shelters in place, such as numerous businesses experienced during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Among other things, the plan designates emergency contact person information, alternative sites that will be used to operate the business should use of the company's primary location no longer be viable, and where and how back-up information and documentation will be stored and retrieved. Large clients of ASP/SaaS providers almost always require that their providers have a BCP in place. In addition, some laws, rules and/or regulations require that each covered entity have a BCP in place. For a full listing of related data security & privacy content for first-year associates, see First-Year Associate Resource Kit: Data Security and Privacy. For a full listing of related data breach notification content, see Data Breach Notification Resource Kit. For a full listing of data security content that applies to federal government agencies, see Data Security & Privacy for Government Agencies Resource Kit. For more guidance on business continuity and emergency action plans, see Business Continuity and Emergency Planning Checklist, Business Continuity and Emergency Planning, and Emergency Action Plan (EAP). For a COVID-19 resource kit focused on employees returning to work and broken up by key employment law topics, see Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource Kit: Return to Work.