Advantages and Disadvantages Of Business Continuity Planning under ICS

A Report
On
Advantages and Disadvantages Of Business Continuity Planning
Under The Incident Command System
For
Financial Organisations
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1. Abstract
Every progressive organisation tries to keep itself prepared for all kinds of emergencies to
facilitate a seamless business operation. The report tries to throw light on the meaning and
scope of Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Incident Command System (ICS) which is
adopted by most organisation to mitigate the impacts of the emergency situations. The prime
objective of this report is to bring forth the advantages of having a robust ICS in financial
organisation which are at higher risk owing to their greater dependability on technology. The
report also tries to list the limitations associated with the adoption and implementation of
BCP under ICS in these organisations.
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2. Introduction
Business Continuity Plan is an organisation’s ability to identify its potential risks and being
prepared for those risks by putting its resources together and planning its response and
recovery (Hayes & Kotwica, 2013).
Incident command system gives the required support during an emergency by providing for
single command, control and communication is provided for (Nogara, 2014). Incorporating
an Incident command system provides for a robust response plan that can cater to emergency
situations arising out of terrorism, political unrest, failure of financial mechanisms, natural
disasters. The Incident Command System is essential to clarify the chain of command and
communications during service disruptions.
3. Risks in Financial Organisations
 The financial institutions rely heavily on complex computer software, programs and
databases. Most financial institutions call for extremely demanding recovery points
for the activities that are very crucial. Business continuity planning helps a financial
institutions to carry on its activities ( mainly maintenance and recovery of
data/operations) in the face of threats such as natural calamities, failure of technology,
cyber theft of data, or terrorism so that it can continue to provide seamless services to
its customers and other stakeholders (Taplin, 2016).
4. Advantages of Business Continuity Planning under ICS
 Incident Command System allows a financial organisation to identify its potential
risks well in advance and plan accordingly to avoid any kind of service disruptions
leading to customer dissatisfaction. This in turn helps in minimising the risk of
financial loss and retain company’s image (Burtles, 2016).
 The ICS facilitates the business continuity program by clearly defining the roles and
responsibilities of each Process Head, as the roles are defined and there is minimum
confusion and error during the emergency situation. The ICS clearly documents the
flowchart indicating responsibilities and responses during emergencies. (Venclova,
Urbancova, & Vydrova, 2013).
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