contingency plan in a business plan example

What Is Contingency Planning? [+ Examples]

Published: January 13, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown, more than ever, the importance of being prepared with a contingency plan for the unexpected, especially when it comes to business continuity.

While some unexpected interruptions can be due to situations outside of your control, some issues arise that may be caused by internal errors. Unexpected problems can also be positive, like a sudden influx of interest in a new product.

Regardless of the scenario, it's essential to prepare for everything, and contingency planning helps you do so. This post will explain what contingency planning is, outline the steps you can follow to create your own plan, and give examples that you can use for inspiration.

• Contingency Planning
• Business Contingency Plan
• Making a Contingency Plan
• Contingency Plan Timeline
• Contingency Plan Example

Contingency Plan Definition

What is a contingency plan? Simply put, a contingency plan is an action plan designed to help organizations respond to a potential future incident. Think of it as a backup plan, or plan B to guide organizations through a worst-case scenario.

Contingency plans are helpful for all types of organizations, from businesses to non-profits, to government organizations. While these scenarios may never come to fruition, it’s important to have a plan in place so that your team isn’t panicking or scrambling to deal with an unfavorable event at the last minute.

What is contingency planning?

Contingency planning is a proactive process of creating a strategy to help you prepare for any scenario that can affect your business, regardless of the likelihood of its occurrence.

These plans shouldn't focus solely on situations that may harm your business. For example, you may experience a significant increase in revenue during a specific period due to changes in market behavior. This is a good scenario, but you will still need to adapt your operations to scale and appropriately meet the new demands of your growing audience.

Contingency Planning vs. Crisis Management

Contingency planning is also different from crisis management , as it is not a reaction to something that has already happened but more so a plan for if and when something may happen. However, a contingency plan can help you with crisis management when issues arise.

Contingency Planning vs. Risk Management

Risk management is the identification, mitigation, and assessment of potential risks that may affect your organization. This process helps an organization prevent losses before they occur and aids in assessing whether or not certain risks are worth taking. Contingency planning can be a component of risk management since that process helps organizations survive these potential risks.

To ensure your business is prepared for everything, it's crucial to understand how to create a contingency plan.

What is a business contingency plan?

A business contingency plan is a strategy that outlines the steps your business’ teams will take in the event of a crisis occurring. It is essentially the backup plan that goes into action when the worst-case scenario occurs. The goal of your contingency plan is to help your business stay up and running after an issue arises.

Business Continuity Plan vs. Contingency Plan

Although their names vary by few letters, business continuity and contingency plans are different concepts. Continuity is the ability of your business to continue functioning after an incident that has disrupted operations occurs. A contingency plan is an action plan that goes into place if an incident were to happen.

Contingency plans can significantly impact whether your business can achieve continuity. Being able to react and take action during a crisis can dictate whether or not your business can emerge from the other side and continue normal business operations.

You can think of it like this: your continuity plans contain five sections: program administration, governance, business impact analysis, strategies and requirements, and training and testing. If your business also uses contingency plans, it could be part of the strategies and requirements section, which dictates how your business will respond to a crisis if it occurs.

Contingency Planning: How to Make a Business Contingency Plan

Creating a contingency plan is responding to the question of "What if?"

What if your storefront floods? Or what if your supplier goes out of business? The responses to the what-ifs are contingency plans. These scenarios aren't necessarily going to happen, but if there is a possibility that they'll affect your business, you're prepared if they do.

Below we'll discuss the steps that go into contingency planning.

Contingency Planning in 7 Steps

1. identify critical business functions..

This first step is the most important aspect of your planning, as it sets the tone for why your plans need to exist in the first place.

During this phase, identify all critical areas essential to keeping your business up and running every day. As these operations are imperative to success, you need to have plans to ensure that these operations continue, regardless of whatever scenarios arise.

You can think of it like this: these critical areas keep your business up and running on a day-to-day basis. Other areas are important, but these are the main functions that keep you afloat. Given this, you want to be prepared for anything and everything that may happen that can affect the critical areas, whether positive or negative. Contingency planning is exactly that.

Identifying these areas helps you move on to the next step as you begin brainstorming possible scenarios that can impact them.

2. Conduct a scenario assessment.

Once you've identified the critical operations of your business, you'll want to conduct a scenario assessment to identify situations that will affect these functions and put stress on your day-to-day operations.

For example, if your business operates out of a storefront, keeping your storefront up and running is a critical area of your business's success. Maybe you launch a new product that attracts more interest than you thought, and you need to deal with higher in-store traffic and a lack of products to satisfy the market. While it is a positive situation that will draw in more revenue, it can still have negative repercussions for your business if you don't deal with it when it happens.

You can think of this stage as similar to a risk assessment, but the possibilities are positive and negative. It may be helpful to meet with people who work in these critical areas and understand what they think may cause interruptions to their job duties and barriers to their success. Ask them how they feel situations will impact them and how they would deal with each scenario.

If you come up with a long list of threats, you can prioritize them based on their likelihood of occurring and how significant their impact would be on your business.

3. Create contingency plans for each scenario.

During this phase, you'll create contingency plans. Begin with the highest priority "threats," or those most likely to occur and most likely to cause significant stress to your business.

Outline the scenarios, people to inform, and the roles and responsibilities involved parties will have when they respond. We'll go over an example below, but a helpful template to follow can be:

• Outlining the scenario,
• Determine the probability of it occurring,
• Explain how you'll prepare ahead of time,
• Detail what the response will be if and when it happens.

Once you've created your plans, distribute them to key stakeholders in each scenario, so everyone understands what they are responsible for and can prepare ahead of time.

4. Get your plan approved.

Once you’ve come up with a desired plan of action, it’s time to get approval from stakeholders and management. If you’re creating both department-level and company-wide plans, this is especially important. Your plan won’t be a success unless there is buy-in from key members of your team and management. Once all parties agree that the course of action described in the contingency plan works for everyone, you can move forward with confidence.

5. Share the plan with your team.

Once your plan is approved, it’s time to distribute it. Putting it in a shared folder accessible to everyone creates transparency and makes it readily available if the time comes.

Make sure the parties involved know what they’re responsible for in the plan, that way you can execute the plan seamlessly should the worst-case scenario occur.

6. Test your plans.

As with all plans, it's essential to continuously test (more on that in the next section) and update them over time. As businesses scale and change, your business needs will likely change, and specific scenarios will no longer have as significant of an impact. There may also be new scenarios to plan for that you hadn't anticipated or thought of when you were a smaller operation.

It can be helpful to create a timeline that you'll use to spend dedicated periods reviewing your plans, testing them, and communicating with the necessary stakeholders about any changes you've made to the plans.

7. Update your plan as needed.

Consider your contingency plan a work in progress. You’ll need to adapt it as new risks arise and to ensure it still makes sense for your business needs. Whenever a new manager or executive joins the team, be sure to share it with them as needed so they know what (if anything) is expected of them.

Contingency Planning Timeline

As planning is always an involved process, you may be wondering how much time you should devote to each step. Let's discuss a timeline below.

Week One: Identify Key Operations

Give yourself about a week to identify the operational areas essential for business function. You likely already know what these areas are, but you want to do enough research to identify them all.

Weeks Two & Three: Brainstorm Scenarios

Take two to three weeks to brainstorm the scenarios you're going to create plans for. Spend as much time as possible speaking to the necessary stakeholders to understand their ideas about the scenarios and how they'd like them dealt with. You'll want to conduct probability assessments and market research to understand if your competitors have ever dealt with something similar. You want to make sure you have all the necessary information before drafting your plan, so this step should be the longest.

Week Four: Draft Plan

Give yourself a week to draft your plans. The first two steps should give you all the information you need, so the third step is simply fine-tuning your research and creating the final plan. You can also share what you've created with your stakeholders and iterate on what you have based on their feedback.

The final step to creating your plan, maintaining and testing, is a continuous effort. As mentioned above, your business will likely be impacted by different things at different times, so it's always important to review plans and ensure they still relate to your needs. For example, maybe you plan to do quarterly reviews and training so new hires, and existing employees, are all on the same page.

Contingency Planning Example

It may be helpful to have an example of a contingency plan, so we'll go over one below. The examples are of a positive and negative situation, so you can get a sense of how a plan applies to both.

Contingency Planning Mistakes to Avoid

Even with the best intentions, your contingency plan may get off to a rocky start. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when creating one of your own.

Not securing executive buy-in first.

Before you can get your team or department onboard, you must get buy-in from the executive team. Otherwise, you risk creating a doomed plan from the start.

Get their feedback on potential risks and other factors that may impact guidelines in the plan. Having executive support from the start ensures the plan put forth is approved and also can motivate those at the department level to buy-in as well.

Failure to cover multiple scenarios.

When assessing potential risks and scenarios, it’s important not to cut corners or slack. Scenario planning is key to your contingency plan’s success. All potential risks should be taken into account. You can rank them by likelihood, but you should by no means leave less likely events out. Otherwise, you leave yourself vulnerable should the event happen.

Think about how many businesses were affected by supply chain issues during the pandemic. Most probably never predicted such a catastrophe, but the ones that had a plan in place for such an obstacle were better prepared.

Set it and forget it.

It’s really easy to get comfortable once your contingency plan is in place — after all, if you did your due diligence from the start, you’re ready to tackle any obstacle thrown your way.

Unfortunately, it’s not a one-and-done process. A contingency plan should be looked at as a living document and updated as needed. Your business needs will change over time and so will its obstacles and risks.

Create Business Contingency Plan

All in all, contingency plans help you prepare for a host of what-if scenarios, whether they happen or not. As you never want to be caught in a challenging situation, being prepared is the best thing you can do to ensure your business continues to succeed, regardless of whatever happens along the way.

As the saying goes, better safe than sorry .

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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The Easy Guide to Creating a Business Contingency Plan

Updated on: 2 November 2022

How to avoid disasters? Be prepared for them. 

When things are going well, you often forget to plan for the bad times. But when disaster strikes, you could lose everything in a heartbeat.

An earthquake can bring your whole shop to the ground, your biggest client can choose your competitor over you, your system suddenly can crash making you lose important data etc. There are endless possibilities of disasters if you really think about it. 

That’s why lack of a plan can be a disaster of its own. 

Let’s see why you need a business contingency plan and how to create one in a few simple steps.  

What is a Business Contingency Plan? 

But first, let’s define what a contingency plan is. 

A contingency plan is a proactive strategy that describes the course of actions or steps the management and staff of an organization need to take in response to an event that could happen in the future. It plays a significant role in business continuity , risk management and disaster recovery. 

It helps you stay prepared for unforeseen events and minimize their impact. It also outlines a plan for carrying out the normal business operations after the event has occurred.  

It’s also known in names such as plan B, backup plan, and disaster recovery plan. In case your primary plan doesn’t work, it’s time to execute the plan B.

Benefits of a Contingency Plan 

Without a contingency plan you’re opening yourself to unnecessary risks. Here are some important benefits of a contingency plan that you cannot look away from. 

• Helps react quickly to negative events. As a contingency plan lists the actions that need to be taken, everyone can focus on what to do without wasting time panicking.
• Having a contingency plan in place allows you to minimize damage that could happen from a disaster and minimize the loss of production. For example if you have emergency generators set up, even during a blackout, your team can work seamlessly. 

How to Make a Contingency Plan 

An effective contingency plan is based on good research and brainstorming. Here are the steps you need to follow in a contingency planning process. 

Step 1: List down the key risks

Identify the major events that could have a negative impact on the course of your business and on the key resources, such as employees, machines, IT systems etc. 

Involve other team heads, subject experts, and even outsiders like business consultants to get a deeper understanding of things that may cause problems and jeopardize the direction.

Use a mind map to organize and categorize the information you gather from the brainstorming session with the staff. You can easily share this with everyone in the organization to get their input as well.

Step 2: Prioritize the Risks Based on Their Impact 

Once you have created a list of all the possible risks that could occur in different areas of your business, start prioritizing them based on the threat they pose. 

The risk impact probability chart is a handy tool you can use here. It helps you evaluate and prioritize risks based on the severity of their impact and the probability of them occurring.

Step 3: Create Contingency Plans for Each Event

In this step you’ll create separate plans that outline the actions you need to take in case the risks you identified earlier occur. 

Consider what needs to be done in order to resume normal operations after the impact of  the event. 

Here you’ll need to clarify employee responsibilities, timelines that highlight when things should be done and completed after the event, restoring and communications processes and the steps you need to have taken in advance to prevent losses when the event has taken place (i.e. insurance coverage). 

You can use a visual format here to highlight the course of actions. It would be easier for everyone to comprehend.

Step 4: Share and Maintain the Plan 

Once you have completed the contingency plans , make sure that they are quickly accessible to all employees and stakeholders. 

Review your contingency plans from time to time and update them as needed. And it’s a best practice to inform your employees of the changes as well, as it may include updates to their roles and responsibilities.  

What’s Your Take on Contingency Plans?

That is how you make a detailed contingency plan. List down the major incidents that could harm your business operations, prioritize them based on their impact and probability, create an action plan explaining what you should do in case they occur, and review and update them frequently. 

What is the contingency planning process at your organization? Let us know in the comments section below.

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What is a contingency plan & how to develop one.

Vivian Tejeda

ClickUp Contributor

July 13, 2023

In business, the only constant is inconsistency. 

Whether it’s natural disasters, cybersecurity breaches, or supply chain disruptions, unexpected events can strike at any time. And this isn’t simply alarmist talk—obviously, business risks can pop up anywhere, but you can avoid so much with a general backup plan.  

It’s why developing a contingency plan is essential for every organization. However, it takes knowing what to include, how to create proactive measures, and how to have this plan ready at any time so you maintain normal operations.

And that’s where this guide comes in. 💪

Let’s walk through the process of contingency planning to help your team navigate unforeseen challenges with confidence. Here’s how to start safeguarding your business against the unpredictable.

What is a Contingency Plan?

Benefits of having a contingency plan, how to create a business contingency plan: a step-by-step guide, elements of a contingency plan, contingency plan examples, get your team prepared with a contingency plan.

A contingency plan is a proactive strategy designed to help businesses prepare for potential risks and disruptions. It outlines the necessary steps to lower potential damage, ensure your business operations continue, and that an organization can recover from its biggest risks or unexpected adverse situations.

Business contingency plans understand the key risks that could derail an entire project or business continuity. Typically, contingency planning relies on business impact analysis to determine the biggest risks and potential setbacks . This allows companies to proactively create a backup option from an original plan.

From weather-related disasters to data breaches, contingency planning makes all the difference when the unexpected occurs. There are plenty of reasons to create contingency plans—for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.

Here are some of the benefits of contingency planning you might not realize:

1. It keeps damage and losses in check

Having a solid contingency plan means you’re ready to tackle whatever curveballs life throws at your business. And the best part? It minimizes the impact these surprises can have on your business. For example, it could be financial, operational, or reputational risk management to keep damage and losses to a minimum.

With detailed contingency plans in place, you set yourself up to stay strong, no matter what.

2. It allows companies to keep business as usual—even when it’s not

A lot of businesses operate on the model that everything runs perfectly—minus a few hiccups here and there. But how do organizations plan around unpredictable disasters from weather or other emergencies that could break your supply chain?

You could panic—or have some relief knowing the contingency plans you created have a detailed backup plan to maintain business continuity—so everything remains running smoothly. Contingency planning allows you to adapt to whatever comes your way and keep serving your customers with minimal interruption.

Now that’s what you call stability.

3. It helps businesses bounce back in no time

Let’s be real—the faster you recover from an unexpected event, the better. Your contingency planning process helps you identify what you need to do to get back on track ASAP.

The result? You save time and resources and avoid any extra headaches that might come from a prolonged disruption—including losing that customer base you’ve worked so hard to grow. 

4. It makes it easier to win over customers and keep them

Here’s the thing—your customers and key stakeholders want to know you’ve got their backs. When you’ve got a business contingency plan at the ready, you show customers you’re serious about maintaining top-notch service and reliability. 

It’s a rock-solid way to build trust, foster customer loyalty, and show that your business operates no matter the situation—so you can focus solely on what matters most.

Ready to build your own contingency plans? Follow these seven steps to ensure your business is prepared for the unexpected. 

1. Assemble a contingency planning team

Gather a diverse group of employees and stakeholders who understand your business and provide valuable insights into potential risks and solutions. 

This team should include representatives from different departments and levels of responsibility, ensuring a well-rounded perspective. Remember, a diverse team spots potential blind spots better and brings creative problem-solving ideas to the table.

2. Leave no stone unturned

Identify possible disruptions—natural disasters, cybersecurity breaches, personnel issues, or other hazards—and assess their potential impact on your business. Take a deep dive into your operations and consider both internal and external threats. 

Consult with your team and external experts if needed, and create a comprehensive list of risks that could affect your business continuity.

3. Tackle the biggest fish first

Rank the identified risks according to their potential consequences and the likelihood of them actually happening. Focus on high-impact, high-probability events for your contingency plan.

This prioritization process will help you allocate resources effectively and ensure you’re tackling the most critical threats first. Remember, it’s essential to strike a balance between addressing immediate threats and preparing for longer-term risks.

4. Plan for action—not a reaction

For each risk, create a detailed plan outlining the steps your business will take to mitigate the threat and minimize its impact. These response strategies should be clear, actionable, and tailored to the specific risk at hand . 

Better yet, don’t start from scratch. ClickUp provides a done-for-you contingency template that you can fill in and share with your whole team. As you continue to flesh out your contingency plan, consider both short-term and long-term solutions, and make sure your plan is flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. The more specific your action plans , the better prepared your team will be.

5. Establish communication and keep the lines open

Determine how the information will be shared and establish guidelines for coordinating response efforts among team members and stakeholders. This might involve setting up dedicated communication channels, designating points of contact, or implementing a centralized reporting system. 

It might even be worth adding it to your onboarding process for employees. The goal is to ensure that everyone involved in executing the contingency plan is on the same page.

6. Train employees and raise awareness

Educate your employees about the risks you’ve identified and make sure they’re familiar with the contingency plan. Conduct regular training sessions and drills to keep everyone prepared. 

Make sure your team understands their role in the plan and is equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to execute their responsibilities. Who is doing what? What are the expectations?

An informed and well-trained team is your strongest asset in navigating unexpected challenges.

7. Regularly review and update the contingency plan: Stay ahead of the curve

Stay proactive by periodically reviewing your contingency plan and making necessary updates based on changes in your business environment, new risks, or lessons learned from past incidents . 

Schedule routine check-ins to reassess potential risks, evaluate the effectiveness of your response strategies, and make any necessary adjustments. A contingency plan is a living document—keep it fresh and relevant to stay prepared for whatever comes your way.

Creating comprehensive contingency plans takes several crucial elements—think of them as the building blocks for a solid foundation of preparedness. Let’s explore each of these components in detail:

Risk assessment and identification: Know your threats

First things first, you need to dive deep into your business processes and identify potential threats that could disrupt your operations. 

Consider everything from natural occurring disasters and cyberattacks to personnel changes and to issues with supply chains. Once you’ve compiled a list of risks, assess their potential impact on your business to determine the severity of each threat.

Risk management is all about knowing the likelihood of anything and everything that could pause your operations. Here are some common reasons for developing contingency plans :

• Natural disaster recovery (e.g., floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes)
• Pandemics or widespread health crises
• Supply chain disruptions or shortages
• Cybersecurity breaches or data theft
• Technological failures or system outages
• Regulatory changes or legal issues
• Economic downturns or market fluctuations
• Competitor actions or industry shifts
• Workplace accidents or safety incidents
• Acts of terrorism or civil unrest
• Damage to facilities or equipment (e.g., fires, vandalism)
• Intellectual property disputes or theft
• Loss of major clients or contracts
• Reputation-damaging events (e.g., product recalls, public relations crises)
• Environmental hazards or accidents (e.g., chemical spills, pollution incidents)

Try the ClickUp Risk Assessment Whiteboard Template to collaboratively plan around all of the potential issues that could harm your operations. A visual whiteboard allows everyone to participate and clearly see the risks and strategies to address them in one space. Now, your contingency plan will look better than ever.

Prioritization of risks: Focus on what matters most

Not all risks are created equal. To make the most of your contingency planning efforts, prioritize risks based on their likelihood as well as what their consequences could be. 

Focus on addressing high-impact, high-probability events first, then work your way down the list to make sure you’re tackling the most critical threats head-on to have a solid Plan B.

The ClickUp Prioritization Matrix Template aids in prioritizing tasks and projects based on their impact on users and the effort required to implement them. It’s a useful tool for assessing operational workflows and improvements, with prioritization made easy using the 3×3 matrix.

Response strategies and action plans: Be proactive—not reactive

For each identified risk, develop a clear and actionable plan outlining the steps your business will take to minimize the threat and its impact. 

Remember, it’s essential to be proactive rather than reactive—having well-defined response strategies in place will help you act swiftly and decisively when faced with unexpected challenges.

For IT teams, contingency plans must include how you’ll address any cybersecurity threats. The ClickUp Cybersecurity Action Plan Template helps IT departments add crucial details to a contingency plan.

Communication and coordination: Keep everyone in the loop

Here’s an important note to keep in mind: A contingency plan is only effective if everyone involved knows about it and understands their role. 

Outline how information will be shared during an emergency, and establish protocols for coordinating efforts among team members and stakeholders. For example, HR software with clear communication and seamless coordination features can be vital for a successful response to any crisis.

If you need help setting up your internal or external communication process during a crisis, the ClickUp Communication Plan Template is a must. This template provides simple steps to build an effective communication plan with easily customizable sections throughout the Doc so your contingency plan is as thorough as possible.

Training and awareness: Empower your team

Educate your employees about potential risks and the contingency plan itself. 

Run regular training sessions and drills to make sure everyone is familiar with their responsibilities and prepared to act when the time comes. An informed and well-trained team is your strongest asset when navigating unexpected challenges.

Get a head-start with the ClickUp Company Process and Procedures Template to easily document and organize your contingency planning guide for the organization. This template will give you the bones of a solid plan to get employee buy-in and knowledge of what to specifically do if circumstances change.

Plan maintenance and updates: Keep it fresh and relevant

Lastly, don’t let your contingency plan collect dust. Regularly review and revise it as needed to make sure it remains up-to-date and aligned with your current business environment. 

Schedule periodic check-ins to assess potential risks, evaluate the effectiveness of your response strategies, and make any necessary adjustments. A contingency plan is a living document—keep it fresh and relevant to stay prepared for whatever comes your way. 🚀

Don’t make planning any more difficult than it has to—use the ClickUp Business Continuity Plan Template and rest assured you’ve included everything. Add reassessment plans to go back and edit contingency plans based on new threats or risk you could encounter and review each year.

Toyota’s Swift Response to the 2011 Tsunami

In 2011 a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, causing widespread destruction and significantly impacting businesses across the country. Toyota, a global leader in the automotive industry, was no exception. Supply chains suffered massive disruptions due to damaged infrastructure and affected suppliers.

However, Toyota’s business contingency plan played a crucial role in minimizing the impact of the disaster on the company. They already discovered the possible risks associated with natural disasters and put measures in place to address them with a solid backup plan.

The company’s business continuity planning played a huge role in quickly bouncing back. Here are some of the best examples of their plan: 

Shifting production to alternative locations

Toyota’s “plan B” included an emergency response process to shift production to other facilities. When the tsunami struck, Toyota quickly relocated some manufacturing operations to unaffected plants, both within Japan and overseas.

These types of proactive measures helped maintain production levels and ensured that the company could continue to meet customer demands during the crisis.

Tapping into alternative suppliers

The event also affected many suppliers that Toyota relied on for parts and materials. To minimize the impact on supply chains, the company leveraged its extensive network of global suppliers, turning to alternative sources to procure the necessary components. 

This diversification strategy allowed Toyota to maintain its production schedules and minimize late deliveries of customer vehicles. 

Implementing recovery efforts

In the aftermath of the crisis, Toyota swiftly mobilized its resources to support recovery efforts. They worked closely with affected suppliers to help them restore their operations, provided financial assistance, and shared their expertise in disaster recovery. 

By getting ahead of “what ifs”, Toyota demonstrated the power of effective contingency planning in the event of a major disaster.

Remember, a good offense is the best defense. That’s why contingency planning pushes you to be proactive in managing risks . By identifying potential threats and addressing them before they escalate—and keeping your plan updated—you’ll always be ready to respond effectively. It’s like having a secret weapon in your back pocket.

Whether you use one of ClickUp’s templates or create something from scratch, a contingency plan is about so much more than just preparing for the unexpected. It’s about minimizing damage, ensuring business continuity, bouncing back quickly, building trust, and being proactive.

Use ClickUp as your central space for communication, planning, and organizing essential documents. Additionally, you can rely on Whiteboards to collaboratively organize your response plans.

When you put it all together with ClickUp, you’ve got a recipe for a resilient, agile, and successful organization that takes on anything life throws its way. Give ClickUp a try today for free !

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Business contingency plan example

This business contingency plan example template can help you:

• Understand your organization's contingency plan more clearly.
• Communicate the plan to everyone who could potentially be affected.
• Prepare your organization to handle anything unexpected.

Open this template to view a detailed example of a business contingency plan that you can customize to your use case.

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Businesses need a plan to get back on track when a disaster interrupts daily operations. Contingency plans, also known as “business continuity plans,” “emergency response plans” and “disaster recovery plans” help organizations recover after a disruption.  

Whether they’re preparing for a global outbreak of a deadly virus, crisis management around a data breach or the loss of an important client, contingency plans help organizations bounce back after a negative event.

Companies create many kinds of recovery strategies for everything, from the merger of key competitors to the insolvency of the bank that processes its employee payroll. In India, the government was busy designing a contingency plan as a drier-than-expected monsoon season approached.¹ Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, a large bank was preparing a plan b in case a host of new sanctions were levied as the result of a recent geopolitical development.²

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Here are five steps companies use to create effective business contingency plans.

The contingency planning process begins with a risk assessment to gauge the potential impact of each risk. Typically, business leaders and employees conduct risk analysis.

Team members begin with a brainstorming session where they discuss potential risks, courses of action and the company’s overall preparedness. During this stage, it’s important to be clear about the scope of the project and invite all relevant stakeholders to give input. Companies don’t need to create a risk management plan for every threat they face, just the ones deemed highly likely and with the potential to interrupt business operations.

Effective business impact analysis (BIA) is critical to understanding different business functions and how they will react to unexpected events. For example, while a shortage in micro-processors might be devastating to a part of a business that deals with the manufacture of gaming consoles, it likely has little to no impact on the same company’s HR department.

To assess the urgency of creating an action plan for this specific threat, the company would need to know how much of its revenue was being generated from the part of the business threatened by the microprocessor shortage. If gaming consoles are a high percentage of their revenue, they will put a strong plan in place soon.

A well-developed BIA helps stakeholders assess risk and better understand which parts of their business are most critical to daily operations.

After identifying the risks their company faces, determining the likelihood and severity of each risk and conducting a BIA, business leaders can follow a simple, three-step process to build their backup plan.

Identify the triggers that set their plan into action: For example, if a hurricane is approaching, at what point does the approaching storm trigger the contingency plan? When it’s 50 miles away or a 100? They must make clear decisions so the teams they put in charge of execution know when to start their work.

Design an appropriate response: The threat the business prepared for arrives. Teams must know exactly what’s expected of them so the company can recover quickly. Compile clear, accessible instructions, protocols that are easy to follow and a way for everyone to communicate with each other.

Delegate responsibility clearly and fairly: Like any other initiative, contingency planning requires effective project management to succeed. In the case of an existential threat such as a natural disaster, everyone involved in helping the company recover must know their role and be properly trained to perform it.

For example, in the case of a fire, it wouldn’t be fair to expect employees untrained in firefighting to pick up a hose. However, with the right training, they might conduct headcounts or go floor-to-floor to ensure that other employees have evacuated.

One way to improve workflow among teams when designing a plan is to create a RACI chart . RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed and is a widely used process to help teams and individuals delegate responsibility and react to crises in real time.

While it can be hard to justify the importance of putting financial resources into something that might never happen, these past few years have taught us the value of good contingency planning. Think of all the supply chain problems, critical shortages of personal protective equipment and financial havoc wreaked by the pandemic. What would have been different if organizations had had effective contingency plans in place?

Cost and uncertainty are significant barriers when convincing business leaders of the importance of making an investment in contingency planning. Since all costs for contingency plans are estimated—there’s no way of knowing precisely how events will disrupt a business—decision-makers are understandably hesitant.

Different industries have different ways of approaching this problem. In the construction industry, it’s common to set aside 10% of the overall budget of a project for contingencies. Other industries use different methods.

One popular method estimates risks according to a percentage of how likely they are to occur. By this method, if there’s a 25% risk of an event occurring that will result in USD 200,000 in recovery costs, the company must set aside 25%—or USD 50,000—to be in compliance with their contingency plan.

Markets and industries are constantly shifting, so the reality that a contingency plan faces when it is triggered might be different than the one it was created for. For example, after the 9/11 terror attacks, many of the contingency plans that the US government had in place were suddenly irrelevant because they had been prepared decades before.

To avoid a similar disconnect between plans and threats, businesses need to constantly test and reassess the plans they’ve made. For example, IBM’s guidelines mandate that plans should be tested at least once annually and improved upon as necessary.³ If new risks are discovered and their severity and likelihood is deemed high enough, the old plans might be scrapped altogether.

When businesses are hit with an unexpected disruption, a strong contingency plan gives much-needed structure to the recovery process. Disruptive events cause chaos and decision-makers and employees are often left scrambling to understand what is happening and how best to respond to it. Having a strong plan to turn to can help restore confidence and show the way forward.

Here are a few benefits business leaders who create strong contingency plans can expect:

Businesses that create strong plans recover faster from a disruptive event than businesses that don’t. When a negative event occurs, the faster the business recovers and gets back to business-as-usual, the lower the risk to the company, its customers and its employees.

A good contingency plan minimizes the damage to a company—both reputational and financial. For example, while a data breach will undoubtedly damage a bank’s reputation, as well as its bottom line, how the bank responds will play a critical role in whether its customers decide to continue doing business with it.

Many organizations use a strong contingency plan to show employees and customers that they take preparation seriously. By planning for a wide range of potentially damaging events, business leaders can show investors, customers and workers that they’ve taken the necessary steps to minimize risk.

Many plans focus on natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes or fires. Others deal with data breaches, unexpected network downtime or the loss of a key employee such as a CEO or founder. Here are a few examples of contingency plan templates that deal with broadly different scenarios across a range of industries.

Severity and likelihood of risk: The manufacturers have been following the news in a region where they source specific airplane parts and have deemed the likelihood of disruption there “high.” They initially conduct a search for another supplier but quickly learn that it takes months—even years—to find one. Since the part is necessary for the construction of all their airplanes, they label the severity of this disruption “high” as well.

Trigger: Suppliers make the manufacturer aware that they will soon run out of the needed part due to a disruptive geo-political event in its country of origin.

Response: The manufacturer begins the search for a new supplier of the much-needed part in a more stable country.

Severity and likelihood of risk: The managers of a bank know of a vulnerability in their app that they are working to fix. If the app is hacked and their information systems are compromised, they are likely to lose vital customer data. They rate the likelihood of this event as “high” since, as a financial institution, they are a desirable target.

They also know from watching their competitors face similar situations that the potential for disruption to their business in an event like this is great. They rate the severity of this risk as “high” as well.

Trigger: IT makes the bank’s managers aware that the bank’s app has been hacked and their customers’ data is no longer secure.

Response: The app is immediately shut down and customers are notified that their data has been compromised. They are made aware of the steps that the bank is taking to ensure that they have access to their money and that their personal information is not available to anyone on the dark web. An on-call team of specially trained security experts come in to restore the bank's systems and secure customer information.

Severity and likelihood of risk: The plant’s managers know that severe flooding might spread un-treated water into the city’s streets and public waterways. Both the severity of this risk and its likelihood given the impending storm are deemed “high. ”

Trigger: The hurricane’s path turns toward the city and approaches to less than 100 miles away with wind speeds higher than the threshold rated “safe.” The plant’s contingency plan is put into action.

Response: All necessary workers are recalled to the plant 24/7 and measures are taken to treat as much of the water as possible before the hurricane arrives. According to their plan, whatever is left over will be pumped into holding tanks that are designed to withstand a hurricane. When windspeeds rise to a certain velocity, the plant itself is shut down and all workers evacuated.

Help your business respond quickly to changing conditions with IBM Maximo, an integrated cloud-based solution that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics to maximize performance and minimize costs and downtime.

Learn more about the process of disaster recovery planning and Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service.

Discover how global supply chains responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and are developing better ways to balance efficiency and resilience.

See how businesses are leveraging AI and other emerging technologies to maintain business continuity amid disruption and uncertainty.

Explore the business continuity measures IBM takes to help prevent or reduce the impact of potential threats.

1  “ El Nino contingency plan being readied for farmers and output ” (link resides outside ibm.com), Elara Securities Pvt Ltd., 27 April 2023.

2  “ HKMA has prepared contingency plans in case of severe sanctions ” (link resides outside ibm.com), UBS Global Research and Evidence Lab, 5 May 2022.

3  “ IBM business continuity management position paper ”, IBM Global Technology Services thought leadership white paper, September 2019.

Mastering Contingency Planning: Expert Strategies, Proven Best Practices, and Testing Techniques for Optimal Results

By Joe Weller | May 9, 2023

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Successful organizations must understand potential risks and have contingency plans in place to address them. We’ve assembled expert tips on effective contingency planning and offer practical insights on how to test those contingency plans.

Included on this page, you’ll find the benefits of contingency planning , steps to take to create a contingency plan, examples of contingency plans , and information on a range of exercises your team can do to test its contingency plans.

What Is a Contingency Plan?

A contingency plan is a proactive strategy that outlines the actions a person or entity will take in response to a potential future event. Businesses often develop contingency plans to prepare for risks and mitigate their impact on the business.

What Is Business Contingency Planning?

Business contingency planning is work an organization does to determine how it responds to future events that might affect the business. The goal is to prepare an organization to respond to negative events and mitigate their impact on the business.

A business contingency plan is a written document that outlines an organization’s contingency planning efforts. It typically includes a comprehensive assessment of possible risks to the business and corresponding measures the organization has planned to mitigate these risks, such as legal and budget contingency.

Why Is a Business Contingency Plan Important?

A business contingency plan is crucial for any organization, as it helps them respond quickly and effectively to negative events. With a solid contingency plan in place, companies can minimize damages and continue to thrive even amid challenges.

While an organization might develop a contingency plan for risks to individual projects or general risks to the enterprise as a whole, business contingency plans refer specifically to general risks to the enterprise. This document details all of the most important risks that a business or organization faces.

In recent years, the importance of business contingency plans has increased significantly. With the rise of climate change, natural disasters have become more frequent and disruptive, underscoring the need for organizations to have effective contingency plans. In addition, the ever-growing threat of cybercrime has further highlighted the importance of contingency planning, as businesses increasingly rely on technology to operate.

“Before, you might have said, ‘What are the odds of a 100-year flood?’” says Luis Contreras, President and Principal Consultant for AzTech International , a California consultancy that helps organizations manage large, complex projects. “Well, they are happening more often now. ‘What are the odds of a cyber incident?’ Well, they're happening more often.”

Many organizations take steps in their risk management programs to try to completely eliminate certain risks. However, it’s almost impossible for any organization to completely eliminate the chance of a risk happening, says Erika Andresen,  a business continuity and resilience expert, author, and founder of EaaS Consulting . Business contingency planning is important, she says, “because your risk management will fail at a certain point.”

The Benefits of a Contingency Plan

Contingency plans offer several benefits to organizations. They enable organizations to respond promptly and effectively to unexpected events, minimize damages, and facilitate a quick recovery. With a contingency plan in place, organizations can take proactive measures to mitigate risks.

Here are some of the primary benefits of having a contingency plan in place:

• Improves Event Responsiveness: By having a clear plan in place, there is no confusion and individuals know how to react without blindly searching for direction. This enables the organization to take swift and effective action, minimizing response times and ensuring continuity of operations.

• Facilitates Quick Recovery: Organizations with good contingency plans bounce back quickly from negative events. For example, a severe storm or power outage might have a huge effect on a state or metropolitan area, but businesses that have backup generators and other contingency plans can often resume operations quickly. “It's resilience — it's how your company stays a company,” Andresen says. “That's how the company is able to grow and thrive. You've figured out that you're going to have a risk that is going to impact your operations. And then you worked and took the extra step to put in policies and procedures to get yourself back up and running with minimal disruption.”
• Decentralizes and Disseminates Important Information: Business contingency planning forces organization leaders to gather people to assess the organization’s potential response to various events. This work necessitates the sharing of important information about the company and its operations, resulting in more people knowing how to assist in the company’s response. Accessible, decentralized information is invaluable in a crisis event or when top leaders in a company suddenly leave.“If you have a company with one or two top leaders, then it makes it even more important,” says Lokenauth. “If one person has all the knowledge, when something happens to that one person, how does the company function?”
• Gives the Company Confidence in Its Operations: When you create effective contingency plans, you boost the confidence of everyone in the company. You instill a sense of trust that the company will respond well in an emergency. Moreover, you enhance confidence in the company’s overall preparedness, foresight, and integrity.

What Does a Contingency Plan Cover?

A contingency plan covers the important risks the organization is monitoring and any possible triggers to those risks. It also outlines the specific actions organization staff will take to respond to them.

A contingency plan often includes the following components:

• Triggering Events: Identify the events that can make a risk event more likely to happen, such as weather patterns or market conditions.
• Response Details: Outline specific actions the organization will take in response to a risk event, including preventive measures and mitigation strategies.
• Organizational Responsibilities: Detail the roles and responsibilities of key personnel within the organization, such as the crisis management team and first responders. This might include a RACI chart that outlines who is responsible, accountable, consulted, or informed about specific response actions.
• Key Contacts: Include contact information for key people or organizations that will be involved in the response efforts, such as emergency services, suppliers, and customers.
• Outside Experts: Identify outside experts or consultants the organization might need to engage for help when responding to the risk event, such as legal advisors, public relations firms, or technical specialists.
• Response Timeline: Include a timeline that details when certain responses need to happen, such as when to activate the crisis management team, notify stakeholders, or implement recovery measures.

Learn more about important components and how to write an effective contingency plan in this all-inclusive guide to writing contingency plans.

How to Develop a Contingency Plan

Developing a contingency plan begins with identifying and assessing potential risks. Next, teams outline an appropriate response to each risk, including specific actions that need to be taken and who will be responsible for executing those actions.

Steps in Business Contingency Planning

To develop an effective contingency plan, businesses need to follow some critical steps. The process starts with identifying and assessing potential risks and creating a response plan. Teams should then be trained on the plan and continually monitor potential risks.

These are the important steps to creating an effective contingency plan:

• Identify and Assess Risks: Identify potential risks that could have the most significant impact on your organization. This assessment might involve conducting a business risk analysis to evaluate potential threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences. Learn more about this step in the contingency planning process in this comprehensive guide to risk mitigation .
• Identify Resources: Identify what resources your organization already has that can help with contingency responses. This might include people, tools, or services that can be used to respond quickly to an unexpected event. Gather and coordinate those resources.
• Create Contingency Plans: Create a contingency plan for each risk that your organization has identified as critical. This plan should outline specific actions that need to be taken, who will be responsible for those actions, and a timeline for executing the plan.
• Seek Input and Secure Approvals: Get input from stakeholders and people within your organization on your draft contingency plans. Once you’ve gathered feedback, finalize plans and get approval from the organization’s leaders.
• Share Your Plans: Communicate your contingency plans to all relevant stakeholders within your organization. This includes making sure that everyone understands what the plans are, what their role is in executing the plans, and any necessary training or resources required to implement them.
• Perform Training Exercises: Train all relevant staff members on the contingency plans, and make sure they understand their roles in executing them. To test the effectiveness of the plans, perform exercises or drills that simulate potential risk events.
• Monitor Risks and Contingency Plans: ​​Regularly review and assess business risks to ensure that your contingency plans remain effective and relevant. Evaluate whether the current plan provides the best response to potential risks and consider making updates or modifications as necessary.
• Create New or Adjusted Contingency Plans as Needed: If your monitoring indicates that your contingency plans require adjustments, take action and promptly update them.

Business Contingency Planning Grid Template

Download a Sample Business Contingency Planning Grid Template for  Excel | Microsoft Word

Download a Business Contingency Planning Grid Template for  Excel | Microsoft Word

Download this business contingency planning grid template to assist your team in identifying potential risks to consider in your organization’s business contingency planning. This template provides a comprehensive list of broad risk categories and specific risks within those categories. By using this tool, you can evaluate which risks are relevant to your organization and develop appropriate contingency plans.

Contingency Planning for IT

Contingency planning in IT follows the same basic steps as other organizations. However, it often begins with a contingency planning policy statement , which outlines an organization’s broad approach to contingency planning.

What to Include in a Contingency Planning Policy Statement

A contingency planning policy statement is a document that outlines how an organization will perform contingency planning. It includes details on objectives, roles and responsibilities, resource and training requirements, testing schedules, and data backup and storage plans.

A contingency planning policy statement should include the following components:

• Objectives: Describe the organization's overall contingency planning objectives — for example, what types of risks the organization is preparing to address and how the organization's contingency planning efforts align with its overall business goals.
• Roles and Responsibilities: Outline the specific roles and responsibilities for performing contingency planning within the organization. This should include both high-level positions and specific individuals who will be responsible for carrying out different components of the plan.
• Organizational Functions and Departments: Identify which organizational functions and departments will be responsible for performing contingency planning. This helps ensure that all relevant areas of the organization are involved in the planning process.
• Resource Requirements: Determine the resources needed to support contingency planning efforts, including funding, personnel, equipment, and other necessary resources.
• Employee Training Requirements: Develop a plan for training employees on their roles and responsibilities in the event of a contingency situation. This might include both general training on contingency planning concepts and specific training on the organization's specific plan.
• Schedules of Exercises and Tests: Establish a schedule for conducting exercises and tests of contingency plans to ensure that they are effective.
• Procedures for Maintaining and Updating: Develop procedures for maintaining and updating contingency plans over time, including regular reviews and updates to reflect changes in the organization's risk landscape or other relevant factors.
• Data Backup and Storage: Determine how the organization will back up and store all electronic data to ensure that critical information is not lost in the event of a contingency situation.

A Contingency Plan Model for IT

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has created SP 800-34, a popular contingency plan guide for IT. The guide outlines the steps and considerations that organizations should take when developing, implementing, and maintaining an effective contingency plan.

The SP 800-34 guide covers the entire contingency planning process, from risk assessment to plan testing and maintenance. It is widely used as a reference by government agencies, private organizations, and security professionals.

IT Preventive Controls

Any organization’s IT contingency plan should include preventive controls. These are measures an organization can take to prevent interruptions to information services or technology.

 Here are some basic IT preventive controls recommended by the NIST for federal information systems:

• Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS): To provide short-term backup power to all components, appropriate for the size of your system.
• Fuel-powered generators: To provide power over the longer term.
• Air-conditioning systems: Establish adequate capacity to prevent failure of components that malfunction when overheated.
• Fire and smoke detectors: Install in appropriate locations.
• Fire suppression systems: Install to minimize potential damages.
• Water sensors: Place in the ceiling and floor of rooms where computer equipment is located.
• Containers for backup media and vital non-digital records: Ensure they are heat resistant and waterproof.
• Master system shutdown switch: Make available for emergencies.
• Off-site storage areas: Use them for backup media, system documentation, and important non-digital records.
• Technical security controls: This includes management of cryptographic keys.
• Frequent scheduled backups of data: This includes information on where the backups are stored, onsite and offsite.

Examples of Contingency Plans

Contingency plan examples can help your team understand what to consider in creating a plan and the important components to include.

You can learn more about contingency planning and download blank and example contingency plans.

Business Contingency Planning Best Practices

To improve your organization’s business contingency planning, experts recommend following a number of best practices, such as performing an effective risk assessment, training employees on the plan, and conducting exercises to test the plan.

These are some best practices to follow for effective business contingency planning:

• Perform Good Risk Assessment and Analysis: Your team should identify the most critical risks through a thorough risk assessment. This includes analyzing the potential impact of each risk and determining which risks require a comprehensive contingency response.
• Ensure All Team Members Are Aware of Contingency Plans: Contingency plans will not be effective if the employees in your organization are not aware or have only a vague understanding of them. Incorporate contingency planning into employee training and orientation programs, and communicate regular reminders and updates on the plans through team meetings, newsletters, and other internal communication channels.
• Train Staff and Conduct Regular Drills: Your organization should train all employees responsible for specific tasks in the plan. Conducting exercises or drills where employees simulate a risk event scenario can help teams identify potential gaps or issues in the plan and improve its effectiveness. Many organizations will complete a business continuity or contingency plan, then “put it on a shelf and say, ‘OK, I did it.’ No, you didn’t,” says Andresen. “You haven't done it. You don’t know what’s in it. You don’t have the muscle memory for what the procedures are. When the disaster happens, you don’t want to be saying, ‘Hold on, let me flip through the pages.’ That's another integral part to business continuity planning or contingency planning: to train the plan and exercise the plan. That’s how you figure out if the plan works.”
• Continually Review Plans and Make Necessary Adjustments: Drills and exercises are crucial to contingency planning, as they allow organizations to identify which contingency are ineffective and need to be revised. It is essential to modify plans when necessary, whether due to changing risks or other factors. After conducting a drill on a contingency plan, Andresen advises, “Go back and relook at the plan and say, ‘OK, we did this well. This didn't work. This needs to be improved.’” By doing so, teams can ensure that their contingency plans actually work. “This is why this needs to be revisited continuously so that the plan is not just a heavy paperweight,” says Andresen. “Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back that you've accomplished making the plan — actually do something with it.”

Types of Exercises to Test Your Contingency Plan

Conducting a variety of drills and exercises for contingency plans is essential for organizations that want to be prepared for any potential risks. The following chart outlines different types of exercises that can test and improve your contingency plans.

Common Contingency Planning Pitfalls to Avoid

To achieve effective contingency planning, it is important to be aware of common challenges and pitfalls. One such challenge: organizations not allocating sufficient resources to planning and executing responses that are part of the plans.

These are some of the most common challenges and pitfalls to avoid:

• Lack of Resources Devoted to Contingency Planning and Actions: To create effective contingency plans, organizations must allocate staff time and resources for both planning and response. This includes significant resources to execute the actions required in response to a risk event. Neglecting these necessary resources can result in ineffective contingency plans and costly responses to risks.
• Lack of Buy-in From Organizational Leaders: Lack of buy-in from organizational leaders often results in a lack of resources. Leaders who don’t value contingency planning might not provide the necessary funding, time, or attention to ensure the plans are effective. This can result in plans that are incomplete, inadequate, or not tested or updated regularly. “Every level of employee is going to look at leadership and see if they take this seriously,” Andresen says. “Is this some simple extra duty? If leadership is saying, ‘No, this is really important, and this is why this is important,’ they get the employees behind that. Then the employees are going to take it seriously.”
• Bias Against Plan B Thinking: Contingency planning assumes that at some point, an organization’s mission is going to fail. Unfortunately, some organizational leaders have a bias against this, as they perceive it as thinking about a Plan B. However, these leaders must work to understand that having contingency plans is vital for the organization’s future and doesn’t reflect a lack of confidence in Plan A.
• One-and-Done Contingency Plans: According to Andresen, organizations often develop contingency plans because they are deemed useful or someone within the organization encourages their development. However, these contingency plans are often completed, then disregarded. In order for contingency plans to be effective, organizations must share them widely, train their employees on them, and continuously adapt them to changing circumstances.

Effective vs. Ineffective Contingency Planning Example

The table below demonstrates the varying outcomes between a well-considered contingency plan and one that is less so. The consequences of these differing results can be significant for both the organization and the community.

Resource and Environment at Risk: An oil production facility has above-ground oil flowlines that run for 7,000 feet. The facility is located half a mile west of a major creek and six miles north of a river. The creek flows into the river, which flows into a town of 150,000 people located 12 miles away.

Contingency Plan Purpose: Detect and mitigate any significant oil leak from the facility's flowlines, with the goal of minimizing environmental damage. The plan places a special emphasis on preventing oil from reaching the nearby creek or river.

Business Contingency Plan vs. Business Continuity Plan

A business continuity plan and a business contingency plan share some similarities, but a business continuity plan primarily focuses on how an organization can continue operations during an emergency, whereas a contingency plan addresses a broader range of risks.

• Business Continuity Plan: A business continuity plan outlines the steps an organization will take to maintain normal operations following a major and disruptive event, such as an earthquake, fire, or major data breach.
• Business Contingency Plan: A business contingency plan covers a broader range of risks that an organization might face and outlines how the organization plans to respond. These risks can include potential major disruptions or events that might not directly affect operations but still require an effective response.

Business Contingency Plan vs. Project Risk Management Plan

Business contingency plans and project risk management plans both identify potential risks and determine ways to respond to them. The former focuses on risks to the entire organization, while the latter focuses on risks to a particular project.

In a project risk management plan , teams identify and assess possible risks to a specific project. It then determines how project leaders can respond to, eliminate, or mitigate those risks.

A business contingency plan identifies potential threats to an organization's ability to continue operating. It assesses risks that could temporarily or permanently halt operations, and then outlines plans to mitigate or eliminate those risks.

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What Is a Business Contingency Plan?

Small Business Contingency Plans Explained

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A business contingency plan is a course of action that will be taken if an unexpected event occurs that could disrupt the business. It's a backup plan that ensures the business can continue to operate despite an adverse event.

A business contingency plan is a “plan B” or blueprint for how to keep your business running in the event of a natural disaster, major technical issue, or other unforeseen disruption. A contingency plan identifies potential risks to your business and outlines steps your management team and employees can take if confronted with one of those risks. It helps protect the health and safety of your workers after an event has occurred, while also minimizing business interruptions that can result in financial losses. A well-thought-out plan can mean the difference between staying in business and shutting down.

• Alternate term : Continuity plan

Do You Need a Business Contingency Plan?

Every business should have a contingency plan so it can resume its operations as soon as possible after a disruptive event occurs. 

A plan will save you time and money since you've already decided what resources you need and actions to take to keep your business going. It can also alleviate some of the stress you're likely to feel when disaster strikes. 

Rather than fretting about what you should do, you can simply follow the steps you've laid out ahead of time.

How to Create a Business Contingency Plan

The first step in creating a contingency plan is to determine what risks are most likely to impact your business and the functions they will impact. Think about how your business normally operates and the types of events that could disrupt its major activities. Your risks depend on the nature of your business and your geographical location. For instance, hurricanes and earthquakes are risks in some areas but not others. Here are examples of events that could cause disruptions:

• Physical damage by fire, windstorm, or other peril to a building that your business occupies
• Damage to machinery or breakdown of equipment
• An extended utility outage (electricity, water, gas, or telecommunications)
• Resignation or extended absence of key employees
• Damage to your computer system or a data breach
• Interruption of your supply chain
• Blocked access to your business location

Some of these events could also have legal implications. For example, all 50 states, along with D.C. and U.S. territories, have laws requiring businesses to notify individuals whose personally identifiable information has been stolen or released in a data breach.

Run an Impact Analysis

The next step is to conduct a business impact analysis so you can predict the potential outcomes of a disruption of one of your business functions or processes. An analysis can help you estimate the operational and financial impacts of a disruption. It can also help you gather the information you will need to develop recovery strategies. Here are examples of the potential operational and financial impact from the disruption of business functions and processes:

• Lost or delayed sales or income
• Increased expenses, such as overtime, outsourcing, and expediting costs
• Regulatory fines
• Contractual penalties or loss of contractual bonuses
• Customer dissatisfaction or defection
• Delay of new business plans  

When estimating the impact of events, be sure to consider timing and duration. 

A hurricane, structure fire, or data breach may have a greater effect on your income or costs if it occurs during your busy season than when business is normally slow. Likewise, a disruption that lasts for a day will have less impact than one that extends for a week or a month.

You can use the results of your impact analysis to rank your risks in order of priority. Risks with the greatest potential impact should be listed first.

One of the easiest ways to write a contingency plan is to use a template, which is provided by several state and local websites including, for example, the one for Cambridge, Massachusetts .

Plan for Continuity

Once you've analyzed your risks and estimated their impacts, you can begin writing your contingency plan. You'll need a plan for each of the risks you've identified. For example, suppose your manufacturing business is highly dependent on a grinding machine. If the machine became inoperable due to physical damage or a malfunction, your business might have to shut down temporarily. You draft a contingency plan outlining steps you will follow if your machine becomes unusable. Your plan, in turn, might include contact information for two companies that rent machines similar to yours.

When writing your contingency plan, be sure to identify specific people who will need to take action. For instance, suppose your firm employs a highly-skilled salesperson named Susan, who generates 50% of your firm's sales. If Susan left your firm or was unable to work for an extended period, your sales would plummet. You know a retired salesperson (Jim) who could step in for Susan temporarily. However, before you include Jim in your plan, you should explain the roles and responsibilities you'd expect him to fulfill and obtain his consent.

Once you've completed your contingency plan, be sure to share it with your managers and staff who will be responsible for implementing it. Ask them for their feedback, as they may think of a potential risk or impact you didn't consider.

Contingency Plan Example

Here's an example of how a company might use a contingency plan.

Tom owns Tasty Treats, a manufacturer of frozen prepared meals. The firm generates 60% of its revenue from sales of frozen pizza, all of which is made at a central location. Tom worries that his business could be severely impacted if a catastrophe occurs at the pizza manufacturing facility and he's forced to shut it down. Tom thinks his biggest risks are fire, windstorm, equipment breakdown, and an extended power outage, and that all have a high probability of occurring. He drafts a detailed contingency plan. Here are the highlights.

Ready.gov. " Business Impact Analysis ." Accessed Jan. 28, 2021. 

National Conference of State Legislatures. " Security Breach Notification Laws ." Accessed Jan. 28, 2021. 

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What Is Contingency Planning? Creating a Contingency Plan

Table of Contents

What is contingency planning, what is a contingency plan, contingency plan example, how to create a contingency plan, business contingency plans, project contingency plans.

Contingency plans are used by smart managers who are aware that there are always risks that can sideline any project or business. Without having a contingency plan in place, your organization won’t be well prepared for risk management .

The term contingency planning refers to the process of preparing a plan to respond to any risks or unexpected events that might affect an organization. Contingency planning starts with a thorough risk assessment to identify any risks and then develop a contingency plan to resolve them or at least mitigate their negative impact.

Contingency planning takes many shapes as it’s used for helping businesses and projects across industries. Even governments use contingency plans to prepare for disaster recovery or economic disruption, such as those caused by natural disasters.

A contingency plan is an action plan that’s meant to help organizations mitigate the negative effects of risks. In simple terms, a contingency plan is an action plan that organizations should execute when things don’t go as expected.

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Now that we’ve briefly defined what contingency planning is, let’s take a look at a contingency plan example involving a manufacturing project.

Let’s imagine a business that’s planning to manufacture a batch of products for an important client. Both parties have signed a contract that requires the manufacturer to deliver the products at a certain date or there may be negative consequences as stated on the purchase agreement. To avoid this, the business leaders of this manufacturing company start building a contingency plan.

To keep this project contingency plan example simple, let’s focus on three key risks this company should prepare for.

• Supply chain shortages: The supply chain is one of the most important business processes for this manufacturing company. Therefore, one of the most impactful risks is a raw material shortage which may occur if their main supplier is unable to deliver the materials they need on time. To prepare a contingency action for this risk, the business owners decide to reach out to other suppliers and place standing purchase orders which give them the opportunity to ask for a certain quantity of materials at some point in the future. If the risk of a supply chain shortage occurs, they’ll have multiple sources of raw materials available in case their main supplier can’t keep up with their demand levels.
• Machinery breakdown: Another risk that might halt production is the malfunction of machinery. To prepare for this, business leaders hire extra maintenance personnel and order spare parts for their production line machinery as part of their contingency plan. If the risk of machinery breakdown becomes a reality, the organization will have the labor and resources that are needed to mitigate it.
• The team is not meeting the schedule: If the manufacturing team members are failing to meet their goals on time for whatever reason, the manufacturing business will need to allocate more resources such as extra labor and equipment to complete the work faster. However, this contingency action will generate additional costs and reduce the profitability of the project.

ProjectManager has everything you need to build contingency plans to ensure your organization can respond effectively to risks. Use multiple planning tools such as Gantt charts, kanban boards and project calendars to assign work to your team and collaborate in real time. Plus, dashboards and reports let you track progress, costs and timelines. Get started today for free.

Like a project plan , a contingency plan requires a great deal of research and brainstorming. And like any good plan, there are steps to take to make sure you’re doing it right.

1. Identify Key Business Processes and Resources

To create an effective contingency plan you should first identify what are the key processes and resources that allow your organization to reach its business goals. This will help you understand what risks could be the most impactful to your organization. Research your company and list its crucial processes such as supply chain management or production planning as well as key resources, such as teams, tools, facilities, etc., then prioritize that list from most important to least important.

2. Identify the Risks

Now, identify all the risks that might affect your organization based on the processes and resources you’ve previously identified. Figure out where you’re vulnerable by brainstorming with employees, executives and stakeholders to get a full picture of what events could compromise your key business processes and resources; hire an outside consultant, if necessary. Once you’ve identified all the risks, you should use a risk log to track them later.

3. Analyze Risks Using a Risk Matrix

Once you’ve identified all the risks that might affect your processes and resources, you’ll need to establish the likelihood and level of impact for each of those risks by using a risk assessment matrix . This allows you to determine which risks should be prioritized.

4. Think About Risk Mitigation Strategies

Now, write a risk mitigation strategy for each risk that you identified in the above steps. Start with the risks that have a higher probability and higher impact, as those are the most critical to your business. As time permits you can create a plan for everything on your list.

5. Draft a Contingency Plan

Contingency plans should be simple and easy to understand for the different members of your audience, such as employees, executives and any other internal stakeholder. The main goal of a contingency plan is to ensure your team members know how to proceed if project risks occur so they can resume normal business operations.

6. Share the Plan

When you’ve written the contingency plan and it’s been approved, the next step is to ensure everyone in the organization has a copy. A contingency plan, no matter how thorough, isn’t effective if it hasn’t been properly communicated .

7. Revisit the Plan

A contingency plan isn’t chiseled in stone. It must be revisited, revised and maintained to reflect changes to the organization. As new employees, technologies and resources enter the picture, the contingency plan must be updated to handle them.

Contingency Plan Template

We’ve created an action plan template for Excel to help you as you go through the contingency planning process. With this template, you can list down tasks, resources, costs, due dates among other important details of your contingency plan.

A business contingency plan is an action plan that is used to respond to future events that might or might not affect a company in the future. In most cases, a contingency plan is devised to respond to a negative event that can tarnish a company’s reputation or even its business continuity. However, there are positive contingency plans, such as what to do if the organization receives an unexpected sum of money or other project resources .

The contingency plan is a proactive strategy, different from a risk response plan , which is more of a reaction to a risk event. A business contingency plan is set up to account for those disruptive events, so you’re prepared if and when they arrive.

While any organization is going to plan for its product or service to work successfully in the marketplace, that marketplace is anything but stable. That’s why every company needs a business contingency plan to be ready for both positive and negative risk management.

In project management, contingency planning is often part of risk management. Any project manager knows that a project plan is only an outline. Sometimes, unexpected changes and risks cause projects to extend beyond those lines. The more a manager can prepare for those risks, the more effective his project will be.

But risk management isn’t the same as contingency planning. Risk management is a project management knowledge area that consists of a set of tools and techniques that are used by project managers to create a risk management plan.

A risk management plan is a comprehensive document that covers everything about identifying, assessing, avoiding and mitigating risks.

On the other hand, a contingency plan is about developing risk management strategies to take when an actual issue occurs, similar to a risk response plan. Creating a contingency plan in project management can be as simple as asking, “What if…?” and then outlining the steps to your plan as you answer that question.

Using ProjectManager to Create a Contingency Plan

ProjectManager has the project planning and risk management tools you need to make a reliable contingency plan that can quickly be executed in a dire situation.

Use Task Lists to Outline the Elements

Use our task list feature to outline all the elements of a contingency plan. Since a contingency plan likely wouldn’t have any hard deadlines at first, this is a good way to list all the necessary tasks and resources. You can add comments and files to each task, so everyone will know what to do when the time comes.

Reference Dashboards to Monitor the Contingency Plan

Our dashboard gives you a bird’s eye view of all of the critical project metrics. It displays live data so you’re getting a real-time look at how your project is progressing. This live information can help you spot issues and resolve them to make sure that your contingency plan is a success. Which, given that it’s your plan B, is tantamount.

If you’re planning a project, include a contingency plan, and if you’re working on a contingency plan then have the right tools to get it done right. ProjectManager is online project management software that helps you create a shareable contingency plan, and then, if you need to, execute it, track its progress and make certain to resolve whatever problems it’s addressing. You can do this all in real time! What are you waiting for? Check out ProjectManager with this free 30-day trial today!

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What Is a Contingency?

• How It Works

Types of Contingency Plans

Special considerations, banks and contingencies, the bottom line.

• Corporate Finance

What Are Contingencies and Contingency Plans? Definition and Examples

Charlene Rhinehart is a CPA , CFE, chair of an Illinois CPA Society committee, and has a degree in accounting and finance from DePaul University.

A contingency is a potential occurrence of a negative event in the future, such as an economic recession, natural disaster, fraudulent activity, terrorist attack, or a pandemic.

Although contingencies can be prepared for, the nature and scope of such negative events are typically unknowable in advance. Companies and investors plan for various contingencies through analysis and implementing protective measures.

In finance, managers often attempt to identify and plan using predictive models for possible contingencies that they believe may occur. Financial managers tend to err on the conservative side to mitigate risk, assuming slightly worse-than-expected outcomes.

A contingency plan might include arranging a company's affairs so that it can weather negative outcomes with the least distress possible.

Key Takeaways

• A contingency is a potentially negative event that may occur in the future, such as an economic recession, natural disaster, or fraudulent activity.
• Companies and investors plan for various contingencies through analysis and implementing protective measures.
• A thorough contingency plan minimizes loss and damage caused by an unforeseen negative event.
• Contingency plans can include the purchase of options or insurance for investment portfolios.
• Banks must set aside a percentage of capital for negative contingencies, such as a recession, to protect the bank against losses.

How a Contingency Works

To plan for contingencies, financial managers may often also recommend setting aside significant reserves of cash so that the company has strong liquidity, even if it meets with a period of poor sales or unexpected expenses.

Managers may seek to proactively open credit lines while a company is in a strong financial position to ensure access to borrowing in less favorable times. For example, pending litigation would be considered a contingent liability . Contingency plans typically include insurance policies that cover losses that may arise during and after a negative event.

However, insurance policies may not cover all of the costs or every scenario. For example, business interruption insurance doesn't usually cover pandemics, which many businesses suffered through as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Federal government had to step in and pass the  Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act , which provided financial relief to businesses, families, and local governments to stem the economic hardship caused by the pandemic. In particular, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) offered $349 billion in aid to small businesses to help them maintain their payroll and expenses.

Insurance companies might also limit coverage or put exclusions in place for an act of God, which is an exogenous event, meaning outside of human control, such as a flood or an earthquake. Also, insurance can't replace the customers that were lost to competitors due to an event, particularly if it was an internal systems issue such as a data breach.

As a result, businesses need to have contingency plans established to help minimize the lost revenue and increased costs that are involved when business operations have been disrupted. Typically, business consultants are hired to ensure contingency plans consider a large number of possible scenarios and provide advice on how to best execute the plan.

Contingency plans are utilized by corporations, governments, investors, and central banks, such as the Fed. Contingencies can involve real estate transactions, commodities, investments, currency exchange rates, and geopolitical risks.

Protecting Assets

Contingencies might also include contingent assets , which are benefits (rather than losses) that accrue to a company or individual given the resolution of some uncertain event in the future. A favorable ruling in a lawsuit or an inheritance would be an example of contingent assets.

Contingency plans might involve purchasing insurance policies that pay cash or a benefit if a particular contingency occurs. For example, property insurance might be purchased to protect against fire or wind damage.

Investment Positions

Investors protect themselves from contingencies that could lead to financial losses related to investing. Investors might employ various hedging strategies such as stop-loss orders, which exit a position at a specific price level.

Hedging can also involve using options strategies, which is akin to buying insurance whereby the strategies earn money as an investment position loses money from a negative event.

The money earned from the options strategy completely or partially offsets the losses from the investment. However, these strategies come at a cost, usually in the form of a premium, which is an upfront cash payment.

Investors also employ asset diversification , which is the process of investing in various types of investments. Asset diversification helps to minimize risk if one asset class, such as stocks, declines in value.

Contingent Immunization

Contingent immunization is a type of contingency plan used in fixed-income investing. It involves the fund manager switching to a defensive position if the portfolio drops below a predetermined value.

Business Continuity and Recovery

As part of a contingency plan for disasters, such as a pandemic, companies need to plan ahead to ensure that the business can operate during and after an event. This type of contingency plan is often called a business continuity plan (BCP) or a business recovery plan.

Typically, a business continuity team is formed to plan for any possible contingencies and manage the continuity and recovery plan during a disruption . Businesses need to identify their critical business functions and perform an analysis of how an event might impact the company's operations and processes.

The contingency plan would include implementing the recovery of critical business functions such as systems, production, and employee access to technology such as computers.

For example, a contingency plan for a pandemic would include developing a remote work strategy to help prevent the spread of disease and provide employees with secure access to their work.

As a result, companies would need to invest in technology, which could include providing laptops and video-conferencing access to employees, creating cloud-based data storage, and facilitating access to company-wide communications such as email and internal data.

Cybersecurity

With any type of disaster, cybercriminals often try to take advantage of a crisis to hack into a company’s systems and steal data or disrupt business operations. Contingency plans are used to outline the procedures for cybersecurity teams to protect an organization from threats and malicious attacks.

A contingency plan should also prepare for the loss of intellectual property through theft or destruction. As a result, backups of critical files and computer programs, as well as key company patents, should be maintained in a secure off-site location.

Contingency plans need to prepare for the possibility of operational mishaps, theft, and fraud. A company should have an emergency public relations response relating to possible events that have the ability to severely damage the company’s reputation and its ability to conduct business.

How a company is reorganized after a negative event should be included in a contingency plan. It should have procedures outlining what needs to be done to return the company to normal operations and limit any further damage from the event.

For example, financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald was able to resume operation in just days after being crippled by the 9/11 terrorist attacks due to having a comprehensive contingency plan in place.

Benefits of a Contingency Plan

A thorough contingency plan minimizes loss and damage caused by an unforeseen negative event. For example, a brokerage company may have a backup power generator to ensure that trades can be executed in the event of a power failure, preventing possible financial loss.

A contingency plan can also reduce the risk of a public relations disaster. A company that effectively communicates how negative events are to be navigated and responded to is less likely to suffer reputation damage.

A contingency plan often allows a company affected by a negative event to keep operating. For example, a company may have a provision in place for possible industrial action, such as a strike, so obligations to customers are not compromised.

Companies that have a contingency plan in place may obtain better insurance rates and credit availability because they are seen to have reduced business risks.

As a result of the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession , regulations were implemented requiring bank stress tests to be performed to test how a bank might handle various negative contingencies. The stress tests project how much a bank would lose—if a negative economic event occurred—to determine if the bank has enough capital or funds set aside to survive the event.

Banks are required to have a specific percentage of capital reserves on hand, depending on the total risk-weighted assets  (RWAs). These assets, which are typically loans, have various risk weightings applied to them.

For example, a bank's mortgage portfolio might receive a 50% weighting, meaning the bank—in a negative scenario—should have enough capital that's valued at 50% of the outstanding mortgage loans.

The capital, called Tier-1 capital , can include equity shares or shareholders' equity and retained earnings, which are accumulated savings of prior years' profits. Although there are various components that go into the tier-capital ratio requirement, the ratio has to be at least 6% of the total risk-weighted assets.

Let's say as an example, Bank XYZ has $3 million in retained earnings and $4 million in shareholders' equity, meaning the total tier-1 capital is $7 million. Bank XYZ has risk-weighted assets of $70 million. As a result, the bank's tier-1 capital ratio is 10% ($7 million/$70 million). Since the capital requirement is 6%, the bank is considered well-capitalized when compared to the minimum requirement.

Of course, we won't know if the banking sector's contingency plan will be adequate until another recession occurs, which is a limitation of these plans since it's difficult to plan for every contingency.

Why Is an Environmental Contingency Plan Important?

Businesses that are at risk for environmental accidents–particularly spills of hazardous materials–should always have a plan in place detailing their response actions. Being prepared can help minimize the total damage done to the environment, minimize accident-related costs, and limit liability.

What Is Contingency Theory?

Contingency theory is an approach to management that suggests the best way to run an organization is dependent, or contingent, on that particular situation. In other words, a specific management style can work well in one company and fail completely in another one.

What Are the Steps in Creating a Contingency Plan?

To create a contingency plan, first, identify the key risks to your business and order them in regard to the likelihood of occurring and severity. Next, conduct a business impact analysis (BIA). From there, start shaping your plan, which should include preventive controls, an incidence response plan, a disaster recovery plan, and a business continuity plan. Make sure to provide training to employees, frequent testing, and updating of your plan.

A contingency is a potentially negative future event or circumstance, such as a global pandemic, natural disaster, or terrorist attack. By designing plans that take contingencies into account, companies, governments, and individuals are able to limit the damage done by such events.

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Cornell Law School. " Minimum Capital Requirements ."

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Contingency plan template

Developing a contingency plan is the best way to ensure your business is safe from risk if something out of the norm occurs. Luckily, creating a contingency plan template can help you establish a backup plan quickly and easily.

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Planning for future business initiatives should include crafting a backup plan in the event something doesn’t go as planned. With a contingency plan template, your team can quickly establish and launch a backup strategy in the event that a roadblock occurs.

What is a contingency plan template?

What is a contingency plan.

A contingency plan is a strategy you create for your team or business in the event that something disrupts regular business operations. Think of a contingency plan as the “Plan B” for regular business operations—it’s the plan that you create to keep things running even if something prevents your business from operating normally.

What’s the difference between a business contingency plan and a business continuity plan?

While they sound similar, contingency plans and continuity plans are two separate strategies put in place to help keep a business running. Teams create a contingency in advance of a disruption to prepare for potential future issues. Contingency plans often require an incident to meet certain criteria before the plan is enacted. A contingency plan is only enacted if a scenario meets a certain criteria. When teams develop the contingency plan, they also develop the criteria a situation needs to meet before that plan is executed. 

A continuity plan is a solution that’s put in place during an incident to help keep the business running. While a contingency plan requires that a situation meets certain requirements before it is enacted, a continuity plan does not. This means that your team can start implementing a continuity plan as soon as something starts to go awry.

Why use a contingency plan template?

Using a contingency plan template provides you with a few different benefits.

Ensure every plan has the relevant information: When you use a contingency plan template to develop your strategy, you’ll have key elements, such as a scenario criteria, and the strategy needed to keep the business running. This ensures that every plan will have all of the information the team needs to enact the plan.

Standardize formatting : When all contingency plans are organized in a similar manner, team members will know exactly where to find the information they need when they need to enact a contingency plan. In times of crisis, people sometimes don’t think clearly. Having information organized in a similar manner helps take the cognitive work away from finding the information you need.

Simplify plan creation : When you create a contingency plan template in a digital work management platform like Asana, you can create full contingency plans quickly and easily. Simply duplicate the template and then add in the relevant information to that specific plan.

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Custom fields . Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create unique custom fields for any information you need to track—from priority and status to email or phone number. Use custom fields to sort and schedule your to-dos so you know what to work on first. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization. 

Messaging . Need to share information that isn’t actionable? Try Messages in Asana. Messages enable you to communicate within Asana about non-actionable work. You can send messages to any combination of individuals, teams, and projects, so everyone is on the same page. Link to tasks, projects, and Goals in Asana to make it easy for your message recipients to gain context and drill down into the details.

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The best way to write a contingency plan is to start with a contingency plan template. A contingency plan template outlines all of the major components of a contingency plan. With the template, all you need to do is fill in key information relevant to the specific contingency plan for your current situation.

What are the benefits of contingency planning?

Contingency planning minimizes the amount of risk your business may experience if a disruption occurs. Use a contingency plan template to create multiple plans for different situations, so your business will always be prepared.

What are the 9 steps of contingency planning?

There are nine key steps to contingency planning . The first step is to make a list of major potential risks. From there, weigh those risks based on both severity and likelihood of the risk happening. Here you can identify important risks that could affect operations, and analyze what impact they may have on your business. Then, you can use a contingency plan template to develop your full plan for the biggest risk, gain approval from superiors, distribute plans to relevant teams, and create new plans if needed.

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Example of a Business Contingency Plan

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List of small business risks, difference between mergers and joint ventures.

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Every business depends upon certain "givens," which range from retaining key personnel, to emergency planning, to credit arrangements. But what happens when a relatively young CEO is killed in an accident or when an earthquake destroys a company's headquarters? Or, when a line of credit is unexpectedly cancelled? There are practically an infinite number of things that can go wrong and negatively impact a business.

There are even unexpectedly good things that can be disruptive – a classic instance is the small business that gets a huge contract far beyond the company's current ability to fulfill it. Contingency plans lay out what should happen when one or more of these unexpected events occurs. Every business – large or small – needs its own unique contingency plan.

The following examples deals with how SEC requirements for contingency plans can affect a business.

What's the Problem?

Every contingency plan answers a question about a problem. In this instance, the SEC requires each Registered Investment Advisory firm to have on file plans that assure that the business can go forward and deal equitably with its client investors in the event that the head of the firm becomes unavailable through death, serious illness or accident. The question is simply: How will the firm handle client needs when the head of the firm becomes unavailable?

Information and Data Availability

The first thing the SEC requires is that there is will always be some means of clients being able to access their information in the firm's accounts, importantly the record of each client's current equity holdings, but also essential documentation related to tax advice and retirement planning. The contingency plan deals with this need in two ways:

• It states that all client information is stored on the firm's primary computer and that the computer is backed up continuously on a separate local drive and on the cloud. Specific retrieval information is provided.
• It states that records of all client holdings are also maintained at the brokerage where the firm executes all trades, and that each client has unrestricted access to brokerage records. 

This two-step data availability plan guarantees that if, the firm's building is destroyed, the information remains fully available offsite, both to the firm and, independently, to its clients. Since the firm's correspondent brokerage has the same SEC-mandated information availability obligation as the advisory firm, client records kept at the brokerage are also available at an offsite location maintained by the brokerage. Thus, client records are stored and continuously maintained at at least four separate physical locations and on the cloud.

Alternative Communication Means Between Advisors and Clients

The SEC also requires that each firm has in place an alternative means of communicating with clients. Having alternative means available allows the firm to continue to handle client accounts in a timely way in the event of a catastrophe. In addition to the firm's email address and telephone number, the firm maintains a mailbox in another city and periodically reminds each of its clients of that alternative address. The head of the firm also has a dedicated cell phone account separate from the firm's business telephone account or his personal cell number and makes sure that every client knows that independent number.

Alternate Communications Between Advisor and Employees

In this small firm, only the principal has authority to trade on behalf of its clients; therefore an alternative means of communication between the principal advisor and a single clerical employee isn't required to ensure that the business can continue without interruption. If the firm had multiple registered advisors handling client accounts, alternative communication means similar to those required for the principal advisor would be required and in place.

Regulatory Reporting Requirements

Because the business records are stored in more than one physical location and are also stored on the cloud, where they are available regardless of the advisor's location. As long as the advisor is in reasonably good health and of sound mind, no physical disaster or emergency is likely to impede the firm’s few and occasional regulatory reporting obligations.

If the advisor is seriously ill, dead or of unsound mind, the advisor’s wife – a well-established marketing professional – has instructions in place to notify clients, all of whom are personally known to her. She is also instructed in how to terminate the business as a registered institution, with notification to the SEC. At that point, the business will cease and the clients will assume responsibility for their own accounts with a minimum of disruption.

Access to Funds in the Event of Firm Termination

Clients have continuous and unimpeded access to funds and records at all times through the firm's correspondent broker.

The Takeaway for all Types  of Contingency Plans

This particular contingency plan for a small registered investment advisory service provides good information about contingency plans generally:

• Every contingency plan originates as the answer to a specific question, here: "What safeguards exist for the orderly continuation or termination of this service in the event of the principal advisor's inability to carry the business forward?"
• Every contingency plan provides specific solutions to one or more particular issues.
• The plan addresses how the company responds internally to the event and also how it responds to the event externally.
• More comprehensive contingency plans likely consist of several different specific plans like the one in the example, each of them addressing a specific crisis or an unexpected event. 

This particular plan addresses two issues common to many contingency plans: data loss and leadership incapacity. Other issues contingency plans often address are:

• natural disasters (also implicit in the example)
• public safety threats, employee and customer injuries and workplace accidents generally
• mismanagement, deliberate or unintended
• responsive planning to specific product liability issues.
• QuickBooks: What Is a Contingency Plan and Why Does Your Business Need One?
• Study:com: What Is Contingency Planning in Business? - Definition, Example & Importance
• MindTools:Contingency Planning
• Federal Emergency Management Agency: Business Continuity and Disaster Preparedness Plan
• Financial Industry Regulatory Authority: Small Business Continuity Planning Template

I am a retired Registered Investment Advisor with 12 years experience as head of an investment management firm. I also have a Ph.D. in English and have written more than 4,000 articles for regional and national publications.

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Pandemic Business Continuity Planning: A how-to guide

The events of 2020 have dramatically shone a light on the importance of business continuity planning. And, with a crisis as significant and unprecedented as this, specifically looking at pandemic contingency planning is a must. 

The swift arrival of COVID-19 meant many businesses scrambled just to keep operating. They may have had business continuity plans in place for a hypothetical crisis – however, the reality of enacting those plans in true crisis management mode, while addressing ever shifting workplace and societal requirements and planning for future changes, has been a challenge.

If you’re still in this position right now, we hope this article can make a difference.

What is a business continuity plan?

Put simply, a business continuity plan is an actionable plan to help your business prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from a crisis – pandemic or otherwise. 

Why do you need a business continuity plan? 

It’s important your business plans for crises at any time – effective planning could be the difference between your business failing, remaining stable, or potentially even thriving in these adverse conditions.

An effective business continuity plan should minimise your risk to:

• cash flow  

Your actions and preparedness should focus on ensuring everyone knows what’s expected of them and what to actually do. An effective plan could help save the livelihoods of many people. And during a pandemic, it may also save lives.

Should our business have a pandemic-specific continuity plan?

Yes – it’s the smart thing to do. Preparedness for a range of crises is important, but given the COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest issue many of us have faced in our lifetimes; companies who have been able to quickly activate a pandemic-specific contingency plan have enjoyed a distinct advantage – even if that’s just the benefit of their teams feeling more confident about what’s going on by knowing they’re able to work from home and/or understanding what’s expected of them as things change. If your business isn’t in that position – we’ll show you how to put a business contingency plan in place for the pandemic from here on in. 

What you need to consider when developing a pandemic plan

Firstly, any workplace pandemic preparedness plan that’s implemented needs to have allowances for constant testing and revision. The process should ideally be a collaborative cycle with all the relevant parties (across public and private sectors – such as governments and councils, building management and waste providers) informing the planning. 

Your pandemic planning checklist should address:

• risk management
• business impact analysis
• incident response planning
• disruption minimisation 
• recovery planning 

Here are some specific pandemic contingency plan considerations. 

Employee and customer safety

The priority in any workplace needs to be employee and customer safety. Social distancing and isolating are the most effective measures. So, your pandemic contingency plan must incorporate the ability for the whole team to work remotely if required. Additionally, you must consider how the team may be able to work on reduced schedules, stagger start times and postpone non-essential travel and meetings. 

If a completely remote workplace isn’t a possibility, there are necessary precautions that will help you provide a safer environment.

• Seek advice from the Australian Government Department of Health

Follow the recommendations on health.gov.au for up-to-date pandemic advice.

• Keep up to date with your state government’s current restrictions

Each state has different restrictions, and they are continually changing. Make sure the guidelines you are following are current. Google your state’s healthy authority (such as NSW Health) and ‘COVID-19 restrictions’ to find the most current guidelines. 

• Assign a planning coordinator (or team)

A clear directive as to who within the company is responsible for creating a COVID-safe workplace is imperative. The role(s) should cover policy creation, review and implementation. Assign adequate resources to ensure your team can achieve their goals effectively.   

• Create a hygiene policy

Effectively create, educate on and facilitate a COVID safe hygiene policy. Increasing cleaning practices and providing preventative supplies such as hand sanitiser and PPE are just the first steps. Safe Work Australia has all of the relevant information available. 

• Minimise exposure

Providing adequate space for social distancing, avoiding unnecessary gatherings and staggering team start times should all be considered. Consider implementing an ‘a’ team, ‘b’ team model to minimise disruption in the case of possible exposure and the necessary self-isolation which follows.

• Identify cultural, environmental and disability implications

When implementing a changed workplace, consider the implications for immune-compromised, disabled, or at-risk staff members. Unfortunately, not everyone is ‘safer at home’. Additionally, there may be discrepancies in areas such as home internet access. So be prepared to make additional options available for staff who need them.

• Implement a contact tracing framework

Introduce a procedure to facilitate active contact tracing for anyone who enters your workplace. You can find guidance for collecting personal information for contact tracing here . 

Trade stability 

• Identify and address supply chain issues

Many companies are currently experiencing major supply chain issues (both globally and locally), so identifying supply chain improvement initiatives   – with a focus on back-up options should be a priority.

• Plan for worker absenteeism

The increased restrictions and focus on personal vigilance means that even if your employees remain COVID free, the necessity to isolate for any flu-like symptom or contact tracing can impact their ability to work. This is why any business continuity plan for a pandemic should always consider increased worker absenteeism.  For employees with children, the (necessarily) strict precautions schools and daycare providers are taking means there will be disruptions that will most definitely affect their absentee rate.

• Increase your cash flow to plan for disruptions in revenue

Of the 8,000+ companies that declared insolvency in 2018/19, more than half reported inadequate cash flow as the reason. Factoring solutions could be a good way to have a backup finance plan in place when planning for business continuity. You may also want to consider Trade Finance or Debtor Finance as part of your overall pandemic contingency plan to ensure cash flow blips with both procurement and receivables can be ridden out. Find out more about how Trade Finance works here.

• Increase communication

Keep staff, partners, customers and stakeholders updated on your corporate pandemic plan via email, press and social media if appropriate. Make sure the tone of those communications is confident, honest and sensitive to the current climate. Celebrating certain business wins should be either avoided altogether or approached with heightened sensitivity. 

Plan ahead. Be prepared. Stay well.

We hope these tips can help your business negotiate the unique position that 2020 has thrust us all into. Keep positive, stay vigilant – and most of all, keep yourselves, your employees and customers safe. 

Disclaimer: The following comments are only our views and should not be construed as advice. You should act using your own information and judgment. Although information has been obtained from and is based upon multiple sources the author believes to be reliable, we do not guarantee its accuracy and it may be incomplete or condensed. All opinions and estimates constitute the author’s own judgment as at the date of publication and are subject to change without notice.

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