How to Build a Business Continuity Plan for Your Houston Business

A business continuity plan (BCP) answers one question: if something disrupted your operations today, how would you continue serving clients and generating revenue? For Houston businesses, this is not theoretical — Hurricane Harvey, COVID-19 lockdowns, and ransomware attacks have tested every BCP assumption. This guide helps you build a BCP that actually works.

Step 1: Business Impact Analysis

Before writing a single recovery procedure, identify which business functions are most critical and how long they can be disrupted before causing unacceptable harm. Interview department heads: what does your team do, what systems do you need to do it, and how long could you operate without those systems? This creates a prioritized list of what to restore first in a disruption — not all systems are equal.

Step 2: Define RTO and RPO for Each Function

For each critical business function: Recovery Time Objective (RTO) = how long can we tolerate this function being unavailable? Recovery Point Objective (RPO) = how much data loss is acceptable? A healthcare billing function might have RTO of 4 hours and RPO of 1 hour (losing more than 1 hour of transactions is unacceptable). A marketing function might have RTO of 48 hours and RPO of 24 hours.

Step 3: Document Recovery Procedures

For each critical function, document step-by-step recovery procedures that can be executed by a competent person who does not know your environment well. Assume the person executing the procedure has never seen your systems. Include: system IP addresses, vendor contact numbers, login procedures, and validation steps confirming successful recovery. Undocumented procedures are not procedures — they are hopes.

Step 4: Test the Plan

A BCP that has never been tested is fiction. Annual tabletop exercises walk your leadership team through a simulated disruption scenario — no computers, just a discussion of what decisions would be made and why. Annual technical recovery tests validate that your IT recovery procedures actually work as documented.

BCP Development for Houston Businesses

SpaceTown IT develops and tests business continuity plans for Houston businesses. See business continuity planning and hurricane IT preparedness. Call (832) 304-9748.