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We rarely get advance notice that a disaster is ready to strike. Even with some lead time multiple things can go wrong; every incident is unique and unfolds in unexpected ways.

This is where a Business Continuity Plan comes into play. To give your organization the best shot at success during a disaster, you need to put a current, tested plan in the hands of all personnel responsible for carrying out any part of that plan. The lack of a plan doesn't just mean your organization will take longer than necessary to recover from an event or incident. You could go out of business for good.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is the process involved in creating a system of prevention and recovery from potential threats to a company. The plan ensures that personnel and assets are protected and can function quickly in the event of a disaster.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) should be one of the top priorities for all organizations. Business leaders need to start with the development of a BCP Policy and execution of a Risk Assessment and a Business Impact Analysis (BIA). These are the key program components which will drive the rest of the BCM Program implementation.

Developing a BCP involves defining any and all risks that can affect the company's operations, making it an important part of the organization's risk management strategy. Risks may include natural disasters, fire, flood, supply chain failure, a reputational incident or weather-related events—and cyber attacks. Once the risks are identified, the plan should also include:

1. Determining how those risks will affect operations.
2. Identifying mission critical functions and processes. 
3. Implementing strategies and procedures to maintain critical functions to mitigate operational, financial and reputational impact.
4. Developing a crisis management framework to activate and respond to a BCP event.
5. Testing procedures to ensure they work.
6. Reviewing the process to make sure that it is up to date.

BCPs are an important part of any business. Threats and disruptions mean a loss of revenue and higher costs, which leads to a drop-in profitability. And businesses can't rely on insurance alone because it doesn't cover all the costs and the customers who move to the competition.

RCS can provide you with the experience and knowledge needed to successfully implement BCM Program within your organization. RCS provides a step-by-step processes and tools for business continuity planning. We will ensure that your business has a plan to deliver critical products and services after a business continuity event. ​

Traditionally, most business continuity plans focus on what will happen if the building, equipment, products or services are damaged in some way. The plans also tend to assume that people will be able to return to the building, or begin rebuilding, almost immediately after the event (such as after a fire or storm, or if there is a utility shortage (hydro, gas, etc.). However,  as COVID -19 has demonstrated if there is a serious infectious disease, outbreak or pandemic, you must plan for the employees being unable to report to work. In addition, during a pandemic, businesses, social organizations or schools may be required to take unique measures to help slow the spread of the illness including being closed by order of the medical officer of health or public health officials. Other public health measures may include limiting or canceling social and public gatherings, stopping public transportation, requiring quarantines, etc.  

In addition, recovery from these situations may not be able to start immediately. It is important to be sure that your core business activities can be maintained for several weeks or months with limited staff. You will need to be prepared to resume your business in a planned way.  

RCS provides easy-to-use emergency response programs designed to assist your company, building owners, managers and employers fulfil their legal and compliance obligations and provide a safe environment for employees and building occupants.

RCS creates highly practical and fully tailored Emergency Response Plans for our clients, to be used by their designated emergency response personnel.

They include simple procedures based on their local environment, covering possible emergencies such as fire, bomb threat and medical emergencies, evacuation and lockdown processes, communication protocols and emergency control structures. Plans are often provided in a kit format containing site-specific contacts, emergency details, checklists, logs and warden teams in a practical quick reference card format.

RCS specializes in Business Continuity and Emergency Response Training. RCS can help clients increase their level of organizational resilience through custom consulting and training services. Our Managing Director is an experienced disaster and emergency management trainer. Our instructors are seasoned practitioners of exceptional quality certified by the Business Continuity Institute. They have also spoken at numerous conferences, taught at colleges and universities and are well versed in international standards like CSA Z1600 and ISO 22301.

For more flexibility and to accommodate our participants, we offer traditional on-site instructor-led classes, virtual instructor-led classes, webinars, workshops, tabletop exercises, simulations and conferences. Our experienced instructors are comfortable having a mix of on-site and remote participants simultaneously.

At RCS, we take pride in delivering superior consulting and training services and in nurturing our relationships with our clients. Each BCP or emergency management training session delivered is formally evaluated by the participants.

Testing and exercise plans provide various ways to get employees prepared and involved in the emergency preparedness process and to validate preparedness, response and recovery.  Exercise design at RCS is based on the building block approach. Exercises will start with basic emergency scenarios for your employees to practice and learn.  As time passes the exercises will become increasingly difficult leading into a ‘real-world emergency’ in which Key members of the company would respond and recover. Testing and exercise plans are a crucial way to ensure an organization identifies the gaps in their BCP and emergency process and develop ways to successfully respond and recover. 

RCS will design, customize and conduct desk-top reviews, walk throughs, table top exercises, functional exercises and full scale exercises. 

Organizations are increasingly dependent on other vendors and suppliers to bring their goods and services to market. This dependence has caused a paradigm shift in the way that organizations plan for resiliency as the need to uncover and prepare for risks externally is now as important as internal planning. 

As business models change to include more business partners, resiliency programs must also adapt to ensure that their organization is not impacted by a vendor’s incident. Often, we rely on our vendor’s word that their Business continuity program is sufficient – but what if it’s not?

Our VCM consulting solution provides insight into how vendors interact with a business and determines which are most critical to resiliency. Our consultants can clarify which vendors pose the most risk to the organization, enabling mitigation before a crisis occurs. 

Our consultants work with you to conduct an assessment and gap analysis of your current Vendor Continuity Management Program against International BCP standards.  We will develop a Vendor Resiliency Scorecard so you can gain a true understanding of your Vendor’s resilience and their ability to meet and/or exceed your recovery timeframe objectives as determined by your business impact assessment.  

Effective Crisis Management responses ensure life safety, communications, and a centralized response to any event. Before an organization can enact business continuity and/or disaster recovery plans, careful consideration to crisis management  to ensure an effective and timely response. 

Working with your organization, we create the structure for a Crisis Management Team (CMT) which is generally composed of 5-7 executives with responsibilities and activities that are considered critical when responding to a business continuity incident. We will assist you in identifying the appropriate CMT Roles, associated responsibilities, and in the assignment of personnel to provide the team and structure that works best for your organization. 

Save money, save your customers & save your business. Develop a solid IT disaster recovery plan. Servers fail. Humans aren’t perfect, we make mistakes. We know this. We also know your customers expect perfection in availability of products and services. Don’t let your technology be the weakest link.

Chances are you aren’t as resilient as you might think. Disaster Recovery is an integral part of your organization’s overall risk management and resiliency planning. The continued operations of your company depend on the ability to replicate your IT systems and data. Let RCS help bring clarity, resiliency, and savings to your Disaster Recovery efforts. 

Life Safety is at the cornerstone of all business continuity programs and ensuring that the entire organization knows how to respond in the first few minutes after an incident can make a huge difference in keeping your employees and associates safe. 

RCS conducts active shooter awareness training onsite for a range of audiences: Management, Safety, and Risk Departments, and all employees. This awareness training includes specific and practical methods regarding how to respond to an active shooter in the workplace.

RCS helps you plan and conduct fire/evacuation and tornado/shelter in place drills. We design our drills to minimize business disruption and we provide life safety assessment reports by locations and action reports of all drills.

Floor Captains assist with all life safety drills and serve as the area leader during a life safety event.  RCS creates a Floor Captain program that covers the scenarios for fire/evacuation, tornado/shelter in place, and active shooters in the workplace. We also provide guidelines on how to select Floor Captains as well as provide in-person training.