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• What is a contingency plan? A guide to ...

What is a contingency plan? A guide to contingency planning

A business contingency plan is a backup strategy for your team or organization. It lays out how you’ll respond if unforeseen events knock your plans off track—like how you’ll pivot if you lose a key client, or what you’ll do if your software service goes down for more than three hours. Get step-by-step instructions to create an effective contingency plan, so if the unexpected happens, your team can spring into action and get things back on track.

No one wants Plan A to fail—but having a strong plan B in place is the best way to be prepared for any situation. With a solid backup plan, you can effectively respond to unforeseen events effectively and get back on track as quickly as possible. 

A contingency plan is a proactive strategy to help you address negative developments and ensure business continuity. In this article, learn how to create a contingency plan for unexpected events and build recovery strategies to ensure your business remains healthy.

What is contingency planning?

What is a contingency plan .

A contingency plan is a strategy for how your organization will respond to important or business-critical events that knock your original plans off track. Executed correctly, a business contingency plan can mitigate risk and help you get back to business as usual—as quickly as possible. 

You might be familiar with contingency plans to respond to natural disasters—businesses and governments typically create contingency plans for disaster recovery after floods, earthquakes, or tornadoes. 

But contingency plans are just as important for business risks. For example, you might create a contingency plan outlining what you will do if your primary competitors merge or how you’ll pivot if you lose a key client. You could even create a contingency plan for smaller occurrences that would have a big impact—like your software service going down for more than three hours.

Contingency planning vs risk management

Project risk management is the process of identifying, monitoring, and addressing project-level risks. Apply project risk management at the beginning of the project planning process to prepare for any risks that might come up. To do so, create a risk register to identify and monitor potential project risks. If a risk does happen, you can use your risk register to proactively target that risk and resolve it as quickly as possible. 

A contingency plan is similar to a project risk management plan or a crisis management plan because it also helps you identify and resolve risks. However, a business contingency plan should cover risks that span multiple projects or even risks that could affect multiple departments. To create a contingency plan, identify and prepare for large, business-level risks.

Contingency planning vs crisis management

Contingency planning is a proactive approach that prepares organizations for potential emergencies by implementing pre-planned risk mitigation strategies. It involves identifying threats and crafting strategies in advance. 

Crisis management , on the other hand, is reactive, focusing on immediate response and damage control when a crisis occurs. While contingency planning sets the stage for effective handling of emergencies, crisis management involves real-time decision-making and project management during an actual crisis. Both are important for organizations and businesses to maintain their stability and resilience.

Contingency plan examples

There are a variety of reasons you’d want to set up a contingency plan. Rather than building one contingency plan, you should build one plan for each type of large-scale risk or disaster that might strike. 

Business contingency plan

A business contingency plan is a specialized strategy that organizations develop to respond to particular, unforeseen events that threaten to disrupt regular operations. It's kind of like a business continuity plan, but there's one key difference. 

While business continuity plans aim to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the entire business during a crisis, a business contingency plan zeroes in on procedures and solutions for specific critical incidents, such as data breaches, supply chain interruptions, or key staff unavailability. 

A business contingency plan could include:

Strategies to ensure minimal operational disruption during crises, such as unexpected market shifts, regulatory compliance changes, or severe staff shortages.

Partnerships with external agencies that can provide support in scenarios like environmental hazards or public health emergencies.

A comprehensive communication strategy with internal and external stakeholders to provide clear, timely information flow during crises like brand reputation threats or legal challenges.

Environmental contingency plan

While severe earthquakes aren’t particularly common, being unprepared when “the big one” strikes could prove to be catastrophic. This is why governments and businesses in regions prone to earthquakes create preparedness initiatives and contingency plans.

A government contingency plan for an earthquake could include things like: 

The names and information of the people designated to handle certain tasks in advance to ensure the emergency response is quick and concise

Ways to educate the public on how to respond when an earthquake hits

A timeline for emergency responders.

Technology contingency plan

If your business is particularly data-heavy, for example, ensuring the safety and cybersecurity of your information systems is critical. Whether a power surge damages your servers or a hacker attempts to infiltrate your network, you’ll want to have an emergency response in place.

A business’s contingency plan for a data breach could involve: 

Steps to take and key team members to notify in order to get data adequately secured once more

The names and information of stakeholders to contact to discuss the impact of the data breach and the plan to protect their investment

A timeline to document what is being done to address the breach and what will need to be done to prevent data breaches in the future

Supply chain contingency plan

Businesses that are integral parts of the supply chain, such as manufacturing entities, retail companies, and logistics providers, need an effective supply chain contingency plan to continue functioning smoothly under unforeseen circumstances.

These plans hedge against supply chain disruptions caused by events like natural disasters or technological outages and help organizations reduce downtime and ensure real-time operational capabilities. 

A supply chain contingency plan could include:

Secure critical data and systems while promptly notifying key team members, such as IT staff and management, for immediate action.

A predetermined list of essential stakeholders, including suppliers, customers, investors, and authorities, should be contacted to inform them about the disruption and steps being taken.

A detailed timeline is essential for documenting the immediate response and outlining long-term strategies to prevent future disruptions in the supply chain.

Pandemic contingency plan

In the face of a global health crisis, a pandemic contingency plan is vital for organizations in healthcare, retail, and manufacturing. This plan focuses on mitigation strategies to minimize operational disruptions and ensure the safety of employees while maintaining business continuity. 

A pandemic response plan could include:

A comprehensive health and safety protocol for employees, which integrates regular health screenings, detailed risk analysis, and emergency medical support as key components.

Flexible work arrangements and protocols for remote operations and digital communication.

A list of key personnel and communication channels for immediate response and coordination.

Regularly reviewing and adapting the pandemic contingency plan as part of an ongoing disaster recovery plan to address evolving challenges and lessons learned.

How to create a contingency plan

You can create a contingency plan at various levels of your organization. For example, if you're a team lead, you could create a contingency plan for your team or department. Alternatively, company executives should create business contingency plans for situations that could impact the entire organization. 

As you create your contingency plan, make sure you evaluate the likelihood and severity of each risk. Then, once you’ve created your plan—or plans—get it approved by your manager or department head. That way, if a negative event does occur, your team can leap to action and quickly resolve the risk without having to wait for approvals.

1. Make a list of risks

Before you can resolve risks, you first need to identify them. Start by making a list of any and all risks that might impact your company. Remember: there are different levels of contingency planning—you could be planning at the business, department, or program level. Make sure your contingency plans are aligned with the scope and magnitude of the risks you’re responsible for addressing. 

A contingency plan is a large-scale effort, so hold a brainstorming session with relevant stakeholders to identify and discuss potential risks. If you aren’t sure who should be included in your brainstorming session, create a stakeholder analysis map to identify who should be involved.

2. Weigh risks based on severity and likelihood

You don’t need to create a contingency plan for every risk you lay out. Once you outline risks and potential threats, work with your stakeholders to identify the potential impact of each risk. 

Evaluate each risk based on two metrics: the severity of the impact if the risk were to happen and the likelihood of the risk occurring. During the risk assessment phase, assign each risk a severity and likelihood—we recommend using high, medium, and low. 

3. Identify important risks

Once you’ve assigned severity and likelihood to each risk, it’s up to you and your stakeholders to decide which risks are most important to address. For example, you should definitely create a contingency plan for a risk that’s high likelihood and high severity, whereas you probably don’t need to create a contingency plan for a risk that’s low likelihood and low severity. 

You and your stakeholders should decide where to draw the line.

4. Conduct a business impact analysis

A business impact analysis (BIA) is a deep dive into your operations to identify exactly which systems keep your operations ticking. A BIA will help you predict what impact a specific risk could have on your business and, in turn, the response you and your team should take if that risk were to occur. 

Understanding the severity and likelihood of each risk will help you determine exactly how you will need to proceed to minimize the impact of the threat to your business. 

For example, what are you going to do about risks that have low severity but high likelihood? What about risks that are high in severity, but relatively low in likelihood? 

Determining exactly what makes your business tick will help you create a contingency plan for every risk, no matter the likelihood or severity.  

5. Create contingency plans for the biggest risks

Create a contingency plan for each risk you’ve identified as important. As part of that contingency plan, describe the risk and brainstorm what your team will do if the risk comes to pass. Each plan should include all of the steps you need to take to return to business as usual.

Your contingency plan should include information about:

The triggers that will set this plan into motion

The immediate response

Who should be involved and informed?

Key responsibilities, including a RACI chart if necessary

The timeline of your response (i.e. immediate things to do vs. longer-term things to do)

For example, let’s say you’ve identified a potential staff shortage as a likely and severe risk. This would significantly impact normal operations, so you want to create a contingency plan to prepare for it. Each person on your team has a very particular skill set, and it would be difficult to manage team responsibilities if more than one person left at the same time. Your contingency plan might include who can cover certain projects or processes while you hire a backfill, or how to improve team documentation to prevent siloed skillsets. 

6. Get approval for contingency plans

Make sure relevant company leaders know about the plan and agree with your course of action. This is especially relevant if you’re creating team- or department-level plans. By creating a contingency plan, you’re empowering your team to respond quickly to a risk, but you want to make sure that course of action is the right one. Plus, pre-approval will allow you to set the plan in motion with confidence—knowing you’re on the right track—and without having to ask for approvals beforehand.

7. Share your contingency plans

Once you’ve created your contingency plans, share them with the right people. Make sure everyone knows what you’ll do, so if and when the time comes, you can act as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Keep your contingency plans in a central source of truth so everyone can easily access them if necessary.

Creating a project in a work management platform is a great way of distributing the plan and ensuring everyone has a step-by-step guide for how to enact it.

8. Monitor contingency plans

Review your contingency plan frequently to make sure it’s still accurate. Take into account new risks or new opportunities, like new hires or a changing business landscape. If a new executive leader joins the team, make sure to surface the contingency plan for their review as well. 

9. Create new contingency plans (if necessary)

It’s great if you’ve created contingency plans for all the risks you found, but make sure you’re constantly monitoring for new risks. If you discover a new risk, and it has a high enough severity or likelihood, create a new contingency plan for that risk. Likewise, you may look back on your plans and realize that some of the scenarios you once worried about aren’t likely to happen or, if they do, they won’t impact your team as much.

Common contingency planning pitfalls—and how to avoid them

A contingency plan is a powerful tool to help you get back to normal business functions quickly. To ensure your contingency planning process is as smooth as possible, watch out for common pitfalls, like: 

Lack of buy-in

It takes a lot of work to create a contingency plan, so before you get started, ensure you have support from executive stakeholders. As you create your plan, continuously check in with your sponsors to ensure you’ve addressed key risks and that your action plan is solid. By doing so, you can ensure your stakeholders see your contingency plan as something they can get behind.

Bias against “Plan B” thinking

Some company cultures don’t like to think of Plan B—they like to throw everything they have at Plan A and hope it works. But thinking this way can actually expose your team to more risks than if you proactively create a Plan B.

Think of it like checking the weather before going sailing so you don’t accidentally get caught in a storm. Nine times out of ten, a clear sunny day won’t suddenly turn stormy, but it’s always better to be prepared. Creating a contingency plan can help you ensure that, if a negative event does occur, your company will be ready to face it and bounce back as quickly as possible. 

One-and-done contingency plans

It takes a lot of work to put a contingency plan together. Sometimes when you’ve finished, it can be tempting to consider it a job well done and forget about it. But make sure you schedule regular reminders (maybe once or twice a year) to review and update your contingency plan if necessary. If new risks pop up, or if your business operations change, updating your contingency plan can ensure you have the best response to negative events.  

You’ve created a contingency plan—now what?

A contingency plan can be a lot of work to create, but if you ever need to use it, you’ll be glad you made one. In addition to creating a strong contingency plan, make sure you keep your plan up-to-date.

Being proactive can help you mitigate risks before they happen—so make sure to communicate your contingency plan to the team members who will be responsible for carrying them out if a risk does happen. Don’t leave your contingency plan in a document to collect dust—after creating it, you should use it if need be!

Once you’ve created the plan, make sure you store it in a central location that everyone can access, like a work management platform . If it does come time to use one of your contingency plans, storing them in a centrally accessible location can help your team quickly turn plans into action.

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What Is A Contingency Plan & How Do You Create One?

Updated: Jun 15, 2024, 12:20pm

Table of Contents

What is a contingency plan, benefits of contingency planning, 3 contingency plan examples, how to create a contingency plan in 7 steps, bottom line, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Many companies take the time to create a business plan and then follow it. This is touted as a way to achieve your goals successfully. However, unexpected incidents can derail the plan’s progress. This is why a contingency plan is so important. Learn what a contingency plan is and how to go about creating one for your company.

A contingency plan is a “plan B” that helps a business address specific situations or incidents that may or may not be out of its control. A contingency plan is the way that your team should react if there is something that interrupts the normal course of business. Contingency plans are often found as part of emergency planning, disaster recovery and risk management. It’s important to know how you want to proceed when the situation prevents you from running things as business as usual.

Contingency Planning vs. Crisis Management

Contingency planning is the process of creating a backup plan or several possible plans. This differs from crisis management, which is the actual response to a crisis. The actual response often utilizes one of the contingency plans created but addresses the incident in real time.

Contingency Planning vs. Risk Management

Contingency planning and risk management are closely related but different processes. Contingency planning addresses the “what if” situations and develops a plan that will work around those situations. Risk management is a proactive approach that companies use to prevent loss or disasters. So rather than being reactive like a contingency plan, a risk management plan looks to stop adverse events from happening in the first place.

Businesses need to be agile to remain successful in a variety of market and work conditions. Here are some benefits of contingency planning that you should consider:

• Saves time: Management is not stopping to develop a plan. All they need to do is assess the situation and implement the contingency plan.
• Saves money: Downtime for a business is costly. Contingency plans limit the costs of being forced on the sideline.
• Quick recovery time: Contingency plans redirect everyone so what they are doing is productive despite the adverse incident.
• Minimizes damages: A contingency plan can reduce the effects of a disastrous situation that would otherwise lead to massive damages to the business’s property and equipment.
• Avoid negative press: When things go wrong, the press can get wind of it, which can be negative publicity for the company. Contingency plans keep the business running with minimal impact on operations.

Let’s look at some examples to illustrate better why contingency plans are necessary and how businesses reacted.

Example 1. A Pandemic Hits

The Covid-19 pandemic forced many businesses to come up with a contingency plan on the fly. Many white-collar jobs were sent home for employees to do their job from the safety of their homes. Other businesses, such as restaurants, had to pivot to expanding their take-out operations and slowly opening up dining experiences.

Example 2. A Supplier Has a Delayed Shipment

Many businesses rely on a supply chain to provide certain materials in order to create and deliver their products. When there is an issue with the supply chain, the business must be prepared to deal with it. This could mean shifting a marketing focus on other products not affected or anticipating delivery delays and notifying customers of the issues and perhaps offering them a promotion for their patience.

Example 3. Majority of Staff Calls In Sick on the Same Day

When a bug is going around, it can be challenging to keep it from affecting your entire staff. If it happens that everyone gets sick on the same day, you need to have a plan in place to address the issue. This could mean having a temporary staffing agency already vetted out for help or having the employees who are on duty do double duty, taking on additional tasks to get the job done.

Creating a contingency plan doesn’t need to be difficult. Follow these seven steps to develop your contingency plan, from creating a policy state and implementing preventive controls to testing and training employees and maintaining your contingency plan.

Here’s how to create a contingency plan in seven steps:

Step 1. Create a Policy Statement

A policy statement is the outline of the authorization that exists to develop a contingency plan. This might be something as simply stating a possible scenario and noting that owners have put this plan in place.

Step 2. Conduct a Business Impact Analysis

This step digs into what would happen if no contingency plan existed. It prioritizes the systems that are imperative to the business functions.

Step 3. Implement Preventative Controls

This step is designed to mitigate any adverse scenario’s impact on the business. The goal is to reduce the costs associated with running the business on a contingency plan basis.

Step 4. Develop Contingency Strategies

These are recovery strategies that help the business ensure that it will recover quickly and efficiently after a disruption occurs. Contingency strategies may be specific to the type of disruption that happens.

Step 5. Write Out the Contingency Plan

This step takes the strategies and writes out an action plan that is designed to overcome the disruption. It is a detailed response that allows the business operation to continue to work.

Step 6. Test and Train Employees

Every contingency plan should be shared with employees well in advance of needing to enact the plan. Employees should be trained on what to do in specific scenarios and help keep the business operations running as smoothly as possible.

Step 7. Maintain the Plan

Keep the plan updated based on current systems and organizational changes. You don’t want to implement the plan and then run into a hiccup because a key employee is no longer with the firm or the system doesn’t allow you to do what you want to do.

You can’t control many disastrous situations that can occur, but you can plan for them. Remember to think about your resources and how you can overcome obstacles to keep your business operations running smoothly after a disaster happens.

What is the purpose of a contingency plan?

A contingency plan exists to deal with unexpected adverse situations, which are often disasters that disrupt your ability to run your business.

What is a good contingency plan?

Good contingency plans address the many possible disasters that may happen. It might address natural disaster scenarios or supply chain issues. A good contingency plan helps you address many different types of disruptions.

What is another term for contingency?

Other terms for contingency planning include crisis management, emergency planning and risk management.

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Kimberlee Leonard has 22 years of experience as a freelance writer. Her work has been featured on US News and World Report, Business.com and Fit Small Business. She brings practical experience as a business owner and insurance agent to her role as a small business writer.

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. 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.

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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.

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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.

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 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.

Don't forget to share this post!

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How To Create a Business Contingency Plan for the Unexpected

A business contingency plan is a strategy for how your company will respond quickly to disruptive events so it can keep operating.

A plan for the unplannable. It sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s the concept behind a business contingency plan: Preparing for potential risks to your company to ensure as much business continuity as possible, even when the unexpected happens.

Every business faces upheaval, disruption, and unanticipated setbacks, some more surprising or serious than others. No matter the scope of these potential events, you can take steps to protect your company. Here’s what to know about a business contingency plan and how to develop a successful playbook—even if you hope never to use it. 

What is a business contingency plan?

A business contingency plan (or business continuity plan ) is a strategy for how your company will respond quickly to disruptive events and keep operating. A comprehensive plan lays out the steps management, employees, and other stakeholders would take in multiple scenarios to help minimize the impact on day-to-day operations and quickly recover. Minor unexpected events might include a technical failure that leads to a website outage for several hours or an illness sweeping through your customer service team and leaving it shorthanded.

Contingency plan vs. risk management

Contingency planning is related to risk management , though they differ in several important ways. A business contingency plan provides for a tactical response to a specific disruption, and it’s focused on ensuring business continuity while helping the company recover as quickly as possible. By contrast, risk management is a broader and ongoing process: brainstorming all the possible risks to your company, assessing the likelihood of each one, and implementing strategies to reduce or manage the risks. 

Contingency plan examples

Planning for natural disasters is an example of a contingency plan. Say some of your employees are based in the Midwest, and a tornado touches down where three of your workers are based. The same might hold true if a hurricane strikes the Florida coast, where your business has a large office. A designated staffer contacts those affected and confirms they’re safe, but they can’t return to their duties until roads are passable, the power outage ends and Internet service is restored. Management then reassigns any critical operations like order fulfillment to other staffers, who have been trained and prepared for these tasks to ensure business continuity.

5 steps for creating a contingency plan

• Assemble the planning team and brainstorm key risks
• Perform a business impact analysis (BIA)
• Develop response and recovery strategies
• Test the plans and train staffers
• Regularly review new risks and update plans as needed

Here’s a step-by-step guide for developing a contingency plan:

1. Assemble the planning team and brainstorm key risks 

The contingency planning process should include not only management but key personnel: leaders from IT, procurement, human resources, sales, or any other relevant teams. Company-wide representation is an important aspect of any brainstorming session for identifying possible threats because these workers understand details of the organization’s operations and the biggest risks. An open dialogue about business risks is a good way to start to create contingency plans both comprehensive and successful.

2. Perform a business impact analysis (BIA)

Analyzing your business’s normal operations can help you identify the most significant potential threats across the entire organization. Which business functions and systems are most critical? What’s the potential financial, operational, or reputational impact of each specific risk? What’s the worst-case scenario for each aspect of the company’s operations? How could that cascade to other parts of the business? Answering these hypotheticals will help you prioritize and begin shaping mitigation plans.

3. Develop response and recovery strategies

You can now develop a mitigation plan and recovery strategies for each of the scenarios you’ve identified so far. The process will vary depending on the crisis you’re facing, but it could include establishing emergency response procedures, data backup, alternate supplier options, remote work arrangements, natural disaster recovery, and supply-chain crisis management. This process can include designating who’s in charge of crisis communications after an unfavorable event.

4. Test the plans and train staffers

Conduct plan testing through simulation exercises to assess your contingency plan’s strengths and weaknesses and to determine if there is any need for changes, or even a backup plan or Plan B. If the plan is revised, inform key staff and train them in the new protocols. This could include natural disaster and fire drills, mandatory employee training on cybersecurity best practices and crisis response, or cross-training some staffers to perform other duties if needed. 

5. Regularly review new risks and update plans as needed

Because risks evolve, revisit and revise your plan to be better prepared to avoid disasters. Periodically reviewing new risks is an essential step in plan maintenance and includes implementing lessons from internal or external incidents, adjusting for changes in staff and operations, and considering new technology or tools. 

6 types of contingency plans

• Information systems
• Crisis communications
• Health/pandemic
• Supply chain

Contingency plans are unique to each business, but there are several major types of contingency plans, including:

1. Information systems

This is a primary plan for many companies because most organizations depend on computers, data storage, and the internet for daily operations. Risks include system outages, cyberattacks, and data breaches. The contingency plan may cover data backups and recovery, system redundancies, and hacking response procedures.

2. Disasters

These plans often address both smaller-scale disasters and major so-called act-of-God events. Lower-impact possible risks might include incidents like a burst pipe that renders the main office unusable for several days, while high-impact potential risks may be a major natural disaster like a hurricane that destroys an office or ruins warehouse inventory. Mitigation strategies may involve ensuring worker safety, restoring information technology (IT) systems, shifting staffers or critical business functions to other sites, and other steps to get business back to normal as quickly as possible.

3. Financial 

This part of the contingency plan addresses financial events that may be internal to the company or macro external factors. Risks include inevitable periodic economic downturns, which can hurt customer spending power and demand for your products. Other risks may be internal and potentially more damaging, like employee theft of funds or inventory. Each results in financial loss for the company. Contingency plans might include maintaining a minimum cash reserve, tapping a bank line of credit to improve your cash position, or boosting sales with strategies like new revenue streams or adjusted pricing.

4. Crisis communications 

This portion revolves around clear internal and external communication in times of crisis. Risks include a lack of internal alignment on messaging, confusion among employees about the company’s response or their part in it, and negative external attention or press coverage that harms your brand or reputation. This plan should include processes for clear communication channels to staffers and external stakeholders, training and briefing of designated spokespeople, and establishing a chain of command to manage messaging and keep important parties up to date on the crisis as it evolves.

5. Health/pandemic

The sudden spread of COVID-19 spurred most companies to develop plans for managing a pandemic or other health crisis. Measures could include employee safety protocols, rules for entering the workplace, communication with stakeholders, and shoring up remote-work support and technology.

6. Supply chain 

Your company’s ability to produce products and services may depend on access to materials or suppliers. If so, risks include disruptions like raw materials shortages, supplier failures, and trade restrictions. Mitigation plans may involve securing backup suppliers, tracking logistics challenges in the market, and maintaining an emergency supply of inventory or materials.

Business contingency plans FAQ

Why does a business need a contingency plan.

Every business faces upheaval, disruption and unexpected setbacks. Preparing for these events with a contingency plan can help the entire team work together to stay calm, execute the plan, and ensure as much business continuity as possible.

What’s the difference between contingency planning and crisis management?

These concepts are related but not the same. Contingency planning is about a proactive strategy: developing a plan for coping with potential disruptions or crises in the future. Crisis management, by contrast, is reactive and in the moment: the actions taken in response to an event, which often includes implementing steps in the contingency plan, if one exists.

How do I avoid contingency planning pitfalls?

Businesses can take a few steps to avoid pitfalls in contingency planning: involve key stakeholders inside and outside the business to develop the plan; prioritize risks based on likelihood and impact on the business; test the plan and revise it as needed; conduct periodic, comprehensive risk assessments; and train employees and make the lines of communication clear in case of crisis.

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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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An overview of business contingency plans

Reading time: about 3 min

Natural disasters, data hacking, theft—your organization has likely prepared for major catastrophes.

Less significant events can also be majorly disruptive—say your biggest customer suddenly switching to a competitor or your entire sales staff getting food poisoning at their annual retreat.

Many circumstances have the potential to disrupt, or worse, shut down your business. A business contingency plan can save the day. Follow the steps below to develop a business contingency plan that will help you stay prepared for the worst.

What is a contingency plan?

A contingency plan is a roadmap created by management to help an organization respond to an event that may or may not happen in the future—whether it’s a large-scale event like a natural disaster or a small-scale roadblock like employee theft.

The purpose of a business contingency plan is to maintain business continuity during and after a disruptive event. A contingency plan can also help organizations recover from disasters, manage risk, avoid negative publicity, and handle employee injuries.

By developing a contingency plan, your business can react faster to unexpected events. The faster your organization is able to get back up and running, the less impact you'll see on profits and revenue.

How to write a contingency plan

There are many factors to consider when building a contingency plan. These four steps are a good place to start preparing for the unexpected.

1. Identify the risks

Before you can prepare for a disaster, you need to understand what types of disasters you’re preparing for. Think about all the possible risks to your organization, including natural disasters, sudden changes to revenue or personnel, or security threats.

2. Prioritize the risks

Make sure you spend your time and resources preparing for events that have a high chance of occurring as you write and develop your contingency plan. For example, you may have listed earthquakes as a possible risk. However, if your area doesn't experience many earthquakes, you wouldn’t want to spend all your time preparing for this event. If your area is prone to flooding, you should spend more of your resources preparing for floods.

To determine which risks are more likely to occur, use a risk impact scale . This will help you to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur and determine where to focus your efforts.

3. Develop contingency plans

Once you’ve created a prioritized list, it’s time to put together a plan to mitigate those risks. As you write a contingency plan, it should include visuals or a step-by-step guide that outlines what to do once the event has happened and how to keep your business running. Include a list of everyone, both inside and outside of the organization, who needs to be contacted should the event occur, along with up-to-date contact information.

You can also create a list of ways to minimize the risk of these events now and start acting on it. 

4. Maintain the plan

Maintenance of your contingency plan is arguably the most important part of the process because it’s where the work happens to ensure you’re always ready.

Review your plan frequently. Personnel, operational, and technological changes can make the plan inefficient, which means you may need to make some changes.  

You’ll want to communicate the plan to everyone who could potentially be affected and clearly define what everyone's roles and responsibilities will be during a time of crisis. 

Buniness contingency plan example

To help you prepare for the unexpected, get started with these business contingency plan examples below. 

Ready to get started? Business contingency plans help you prepare your organization to handle anything unexpected. Give your employees a realistic plan for how they should handle any problem that arises. 

Learn the 5 steps to an effective risk management process.

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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What Is A Business Contingency Plan & How To Create One

It is the question that haunts business continuity professionals throughout their careers. Of course, there are a million possibilities that might occur at any time. But creating a business contingency plan at least helps you to prepare for the unknown.

Here, we take a look at the basics of business contingency planning , as well as how to create a plan for your own organization.

What is a business contingency plan?

A business contingency plan is a course of action that your organization would take if an unexpected event or situation occurs.

Sometimes a contingency can be positive—such as a surprise influx of money—but most often the term refers to a negative event that affects an organization’s reputation, financial health or ability to stay in business. Examples of a negative event include fire, flood, data breach and a major IT network failure.

Contingency plans are an important part of your overall business continuity strategy because they help ensure your organization is ready for anything. Many large businesses and government organizations create multiple sets of contingency plans so that a variety of potential threats are well-researched and their responses are fully practiced before a crisis hits.

Think of contingency planning as a proactive strategy, whereas crisis management—the other piece of the business continuity puzzle—is more of a reactive strategy. A contingency plan helps to ensure you are prepared for what may come; a crisis management plan empowers you to manage the response after the incident occurs.

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How do i create a business contingency plan.

Creating a contingency plan requires a bit of research and planning. However, working ahead on each plan will be worth it in the long run.

To create a contingency plan for your organization, follow this five-step framework:

1. Identify/prioritize your resources.

First, do a little research throughout your organization to identify and prioritize the resources that your organization cannot do without, such as employees, IT systems, and specific facilities and physical assets.

2. Pinpoint the key risks.

Next, identify the potential threats to these critical resources. Meet with employees, executives, IT and other key personnel to gain a holistic idea of the events that could impact your resources. If necessary, consider bringing in a consultant who specializes in identifying risk.

3. Draft your contingency plans.

Ideally, you would then write out a contingency plan for each of the identified risks. However, it’s best to start with the highest-priority threats—usually those that are most likely to occur and would have the biggest impact. Then, over time you can work toward drafting plans for each lower-priority risk.

As you draft each plan, ask yourself what steps would have to be taken for the organization to resume normal operations. Consider things like communications, employee activity, staff responsibilities and timelines (what needs to happen when). Then, create a step-by-step plan for each risk.

4. Distribute your plans.

Once each plan is completed and approved, ensure that every employee and stakeholder has easy access to it. For this important step, you might consider leveraging  an issue and crisis management app , which provides contingency plans and related documents directly to each employee on his or her mobile device.This approach replaces the traditional hard-copy ring-bound folders and ensures that each employee has access to the most recent plan immediately should the worst happen.

5. Maintain each plan.

Be sure to keep each plan updated as your organization goes through changes, such as hirings and firings and the adoption of new technologies. In addition, rehearse implementation with stakeholders on a regular basis to ensure that each team member knows their role.

What contingencies do you think are most likely to affect your organization? How are you currently preparing for them?

Crisis Management Pillars: Building Alignment With Stakeholders

Use a Risk Assessment to Prioritize the Issues you Need to Manage

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Why Having a Contingency Plan Is So Important — and How to Develop an Effective One Let's discuss the importance of contingency planning, what a comprehensive contingency plan should include and how to implement one effectively.

By Greg Davis Edited by Chelsea Brown Apr 27, 2023

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In today's ever-changing business environment, business owners, entrepreneurs and franchise owners need to be prepared for the unexpected. Contingency planning is a critical component of business growth, enabling organizations to minimize disruptions and recover quickly from unforeseen events.

In this article, we will discuss the importance of contingency planning, the key elements of a comprehensive plan and how to implement a contingency plan effectively. By taking proactive steps to prepare for potential challenges, businesses can build resilience and ensure continued growth and success.

Related: 4 Ways to Prepare Now so Your Business Survives the Unexpected Later

Why contingency planning matters

Disruptions can come in many forms, from natural disasters to cybersecurity breaches, equipment failures or even changes in the competitive landscape. Without proper planning, these events can have a devastating impact on a business's operations, finances and reputation. Contingency planning helps businesses minimize the impact of disruptions, maintain operational continuity and recover more quickly from setbacks. This resilience is crucial for business growth, as it enables organizations to adapt to changing conditions and capitalize on new opportunities.

Elements of a comprehensive contingency plan

Developing an effective contingency plan involves several key steps:

Step 1: Identify potential risks and vulnerabilities

The first step in creating a contingency plan is to identify potential risks and vulnerabilities that could impact your business. This includes both internal and external factors, such as natural disasters , equipment or network failures, supply chain disruptions, cybersecurity breaches, changes in the landscape or the loss of key personnel. By identifying potential threats, businesses can better understand their exposure and develop targeted strategies to address these risks.

Step 2: Develop response strategies

Once potential risks have been identified, businesses should develop response strategies to mitigate the impact of these events. This may involve developing alternative suppliers, establishing backup systems or processes or implementing new security measures. Response strategies should be tailored to the specific risks faced by the business and should take into account factors such as the likelihood of the event occurring, the potential impact on operations and the resources required to implement the strategy.

Step 3: Establish a communication plan

In the event of a disruption, clear communication is essential to ensure that all stakeholders, including employees, customers and suppliers, are aware of the situation and know what steps are being taken to address the issue. A comprehensive communication plan should outline how the information will be shared, who will be responsible for providing updates and what channels will be used to communicate with different stakeholders.

Step 4: Train employees and build awareness

For a contingency plan to be effective, employees need to be aware of the potential risks facing the business and understand their roles and responsibilities in the event of a disruption. This may involve training employees in new processes or procedures, providing guidance on emergency response protocols or conducting regular drills to ensure that all team members are prepared to act quickly and effectively in the event of a crisis.

Step 5: Review and update the plan regularly

As the business environment continues to evolve, it is essential that contingency plans are regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in the company's operations, industry dynamics or the broader economic landscape. This may involve conducting periodic risk assessments, updating response strategies or refining communication protocols to ensure that the plan remains relevant and effective.

Related: 5 Reasons Why You Should Create an Emergency Response Program for Your Business

Implementing a contingency plan

With a comprehensive contingency plan in place, businesses can take steps to minimize the impact of disruptions and maintain operational continuity . Key steps in the implementation process include:

Developing an action plan

An action plan should outline the specific steps that will be taken to address each identified risk, including timelines, resources and responsibilities. This plan should be clear, concise and easily accessible to all team members, ensuring that everyone understands their role in the event of a disruption .

Allocating resources

Contingency planning may require the allocation of resources, such as budget, personnel or equipment, to implement response strategies effectively. Businesses should prioritize resources based on the likelihood and potential impact of each identified risk, ensuring that the most critical vulnerabilities are addressed first.

Testing and refining the plan

Once the plan has been developed, it is essential to test its effectiveness through simulation exercises, drills or other means. This will help identify any weaknesses or gaps in the plan and enable the business to refine its strategies accordingly. Regular testing also helps ensure that employees are familiar with the plan and prepared to act in the event of a disruption.

Monitoring the environment and adapting

Contingency planning is an ongoing process that requires businesses to monitor changes in their operating environment and adapt their strategies accordingly. This may involve updating the plan to address new risks, adjusting response strategies in light of changing circumstances, or reallocating resources as needed. By staying attuned to the evolving business landscape, organizations can remain agile and resilient in the face of uncertainty .

Contingency planning is a critical component of business growth, enabling organizations to navigate the unexpected and maintain operational continuity in the face of disruptions. By identifying potential risks, developing targeted response strategies and implementing a comprehensive plan, businesses can build resilience and drive continued success. As the business environment continues to evolve, contingency planning will remain a vital tool for business owners, entrepreneurs and franchise owners seeking to capitalize on new opportunities and protect their organizations from unforeseen challenges .

Related: How to Create a Disaster Plan for Your Business

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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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5 Steps to Create a Contingency Plan for Your Business

Posted may 4, 2022 by sabrina parsons.

Any business that survived the pandemic had to adjust, readjust, and rethink their business as they dealt with shutdowns, supply chain issues, and ever-changing customer behavior. At the time, it could be seen as crisis or recovery planning . However, intentionally or not, these businesses were proactively creating contingency plans.

What is a business contingency plan?

A business contingency plan is an established strategy or backup plan designed to help organizations respond to possible future events. This contingency planning process encourages you to consider business and financial strategies for potential risks well in advance. It’s basically a lean business plan that takes into account unexpected scenarios that could affect your business. 

Doing so ensures that you aren’t caught off guard. Instead, when a negative event occurs, you can jump right into successfully navigating your business. A contingency plan can even address larger potential issues such as a natural disaster, a global pandemic, or a major security breach. 

Your contingency plan will want to address and cover:

Financial scenarios

Financial “what if” scenarios are based on the contingency you are planning for. The important part is to include your projected Profit and Loss statements as well as your Cash Flow Forecast. Adjust these financial statements around a potential issue to better understand what course of action you’ll need to take.

Are there increased costs of goods and services or do you need to change your pricing? Should you add a fuel surcharge if the contingency involves higher gas prices? 

Strategy adjustments

Understanding the financial effects is the first step. Next, you’ll need to address how you will adjust your business and marketing strategy to navigate the contingency, you are planning for. This is when you go from risk management to creating a plan that helps your business thrive rather than recover.

What changes will you need to make to your staffing, advertising, and marketing budgets? Will you need to change how you sell, market, and support your products and services to address the adverse events? 

Why is a contingency plan necessary?

By putting together a contingency plan and addressing risks to your business, you will be prepared and able to best address those risks when and if they happen. The last few years have taught all small business owners that we have no idea what is ahead. That the best possible way to plan for the future is to be ready for anything. 

A contingency plan for your business will help you step through the what-if scenarios that you might encounter. To start putting together solid plans that will help you overcome risks, fast-track disaster recovery, and even ensure there’s business continuity in place. 

What if gas prices double, and your run a delivery business? A contingency plan could help you model the financial scenario, make sure you have the right access to credit lines to pay for the increased costs, and plan for the right gas surcharge to add to your customer deliveries. 

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How to create a contingency plan for your business

Writing a contingency plan doesn’t have to be a huge or stressful ordeal. All you are doing is taking your lean business plan, and making some adjustments to the strategy and the strategic forecast to plan for uncertainty. Here’s a step-by-step guide to write your own contingency plan.

1. Identify and list the risks

In the past few years, all business owners have experienced risks they never saw coming. Trying to account for everything can be overwhelming and time-consuming. Rather than anticipating anything that could happen to your business, focus on the next few years. 

Start with a comprehensive list, putting everything down that could possibly happen to your business in the next 12-24 months. Loss of an employee, a dip in sales, equipment failure, rising shipping costs, insurance increases, etc. Depending on your business, it may also be beneficial to consider larger unforeseen risks such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks, and economic downturns.

We can all look back at the beginning of the pandemic and learn from the events. Use that knowledge to think about potential future risks and build your list.  

2. Prioritize key risks

Now that you have all those frightening potentials listed, it’s time to prioritize. You need to think about your key risks. The ones that are most likely to happen or will cause the greatest hardship to your business. Realistically you should prioritize no more than 3-5 key risks. 

Remember, you can always use these initial contingency plans to help you explore additional risks. More than likely, several risks will have similar effects on your business functions. It’s much easier to adapt your contingency plans once you have them rather than starting fresh every single time. 

3. Outline contingency plans for each risk

Now that you’ve done the prep work, it’s time to jump into developing your plan. Take your prioritized list and focus on building contingency plans that outline how you and your business will tackle each risk. Here is what you should include in your contingency plan:

Financial forecasts for each risk

To truly understand how a specific risk impacts your business operations, you’ll need a full financial forecast . This will account for what the risk will do to your revenue, expenses, or both. Having a clear picture of your potential financial situation will help you answer questions such as:

• Will you have enough cash to address the risk? 
• How does the risk affect your ability to collect cash, and pay your bills?
• Are there any obvious costs that you can minimize or cut? 
• Do you need to consider expanding a credit line or applying for a loan?

Don’t worry about creating these forecasts from scratch. Instead, start with your current financial forecasts, make a copy, and adjust projections based on what you expect to happen. Be sure to take note of what adjustments you make. This will make it far easier to update your forecast scenarios whenever you bring in more recent real-world performance data for your business. 

Looking for a better solution? Learn how you can save more time and ensure greater accuracy when adjusting to actual performance using LivePlan .  

The one-page plan

With your forecasts in place, you can begin to define the actions you will take. Keep things simple and easy to follow by creating a one-page strategic plan for each risk. In it, you’ll address how the effects of each risk will impact your operations, sales, marketing, milestones, and even funding needs. This will help you answer questions such as:

• What strategies in marketing and sales have to be changed or adjusted? 
• Do you have to hire new people? 
• Do you need to reduce costs and expenses to survive the risk? 
• What are the roles and responsibilities required to address the risk?

Document your 12-24 month road map and the key changes you need to implement to keep your business healthy. Keep it lean and actionable to ensure that you and your team will actually be able to use it when the time comes. The LivePlan Pitch page is a perfect place to outline your one-page strategy. 

4. Connect them to your overall business plan

You’ve considered the risks. You have contingency plans in place that include financial forecast scenarios and a one-page action plan. It’s now time to connect your contingency plans to your overall business strategy and business plan. 

Ideally, you should have a simple, lean business plan that is helping guide your business over the next 12-36 months. If not, take 30-minutes to develop one based on your current expectations for your business. This will make it far easier to update and use when facing the risks you’ve identified.

Take this business contingency plan example for instance. If your unexpected event is about a financial risk (such as a dip in sales), connect that contingency plan with your financial plan as a potential fork in the road. You can easily do this same exercise with the two to three more contingency plans you have already built out. 

The end goal is to make this quick and painless so that you can spend less time planning and more time acting when a crisis you’ve planned for occurs. 

Think of it like attachments for a tractor. Where you have all of the right buckets and tools to get your yard in tip-top shape. You’re prepared to jump right in and take on everything from mowing and digging to laying down new gravel. All you need to do is add the right attachments ahead of time. That’s exactly how you want your contingency plans to function with your current plan. 

5. Share, review and revise

Once you have integrated the contingency plans into your overall business plan, it’s time to get your team on board. You want to be sure that they understand the ins and outs of your business plan, and how each contingency should be executed when the time comes. 

So how do you get your team on board? Try these three simple steps:

• Share the plan with the contingency plans integrated into the appropriate places. 
• Invite team members to a meeting where you can present the business plan, the potential unexpected events your business might have to face, and the contingency plans that outline how you navigate around them. 
• Set the expectation with the team for regular, monthly review meetings. This is where you can review business health, compare actual results to the planned results and assess the need to implement a contingency plan.

You can check out our guide on how to conduct a monthly plan review meeting for a more thorough explanation of how to set up this process. 

Preparation is everything

The hard work is done. You have thought about potential hurdles your business might face and you have a plan. Your team is engaged and you now have a regular review schedule in place to keep your business on track. 

All you have to do now is implement your lean business plan, watch for obstacles, and be ready to use your contingency plans if needed. Don’t worry, your regular review meetings will help you track your actual results against your plan and will give you an opportunity to revise your plan if need be.  Check out how LivePlan can help simplify this process and help you make better business decisions in any scenario.

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Sabrina Parsons

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• Business Continuity Plan Basics
• Understanding BCPs
• Benefits of BCPs
• How to Create a BCP
• BCP & Impact Analysis
• BCP vs. Disaster Recovery Plan

Frequently Asked Questions

• Business Continuity Plan FAQs

The Bottom Line

What is a business continuity plan (bcp), and how does it work.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

What Is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)? 

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a system of prevention and recovery from potential threats to a company. The plan ensures that personnel and assets are protected and are able to function quickly in the event of a disaster.

Key Takeaways

• Business continuity plans (BCPs) are prevention and recovery systems for potential threats, such as natural disasters or cyber-attacks.
• BCP is designed to protect personnel and assets and make sure they can function quickly when disaster strikes.
• BCPs should be tested to ensure there are no weaknesses, which can be identified and corrected.

Understanding Business Continuity Plans (BCPs)

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

• Determining how those risks will affect operations
• Implementing safeguards and procedures to mitigate the risks
• Testing procedures to ensure they work
• Reviewing the process to make sure that it is up to date

BCPs are an important part of any business. Threats and disruptions mean a loss of revenue and higher costs, which leads to a drop in profitability. And businesses can't rely on insurance alone because it doesn't cover all the costs and the customers who move to the competition. It is generally conceived in advance and involves input from key stakeholders and personnel.

Business impact analysis, recovery, organization, and training are all steps corporations need to follow when creating a Business Continuity Plan.

Benefits of a Business Continuity Plan

Businesses are prone to a host of disasters that vary in degree from minor to catastrophic. Business continuity planning is typically meant to help a company continue operating in the event of major disasters such as fires. BCPs are different from a disaster recovery plan, which focuses on the recovery of a company's information technology system after a crisis.

Consider a finance company based in a major city. It may put a BCP in place by taking steps including backing up its computer and client files offsite. If something were to happen to the company's corporate office, its satellite offices would still have access to important information.

An important point to note is that BCP may not be as effective if a large portion of the population is affected, as in the case of a disease outbreak. Nonetheless, BCPs can improve risk management—preventing disruptions from spreading. They can also help mitigate downtime of networks or technology, saving the company money.

How To Create a Business Continuity Plan

There are several steps many companies must follow to develop a solid BCP. They include:

• Business Impact Analysis : Here, the business will identify functions and related resources that are time-sensitive. (More on this below.)
• Recovery : In this portion, the business must identify and implement steps to recover critical business functions.
• Organization : A continuity team must be created. This team will devise a plan to manage the disruption.
• Training : The continuity team must be trained and tested. Members of the team should also complete exercises that go over the plan and strategies.

Companies may also find it useful to come up with a checklist that includes key details such as emergency contact information, a list of resources the continuity team may need, where backup data and other required information are housed or stored, and other important personnel.

Along with testing the continuity team, the company should also test the BCP itself. It should be tested several times to ensure it can be applied to many different risk scenarios . This will help identify any weaknesses in the plan which can then be corrected.

In order for a business continuity plan to be successful, all employees—even those who aren't on the continuity team—must be aware of the plan.

Business Continuity Impact Analysis

An important part of developing a BCP is a business continuity impact analysis. It identifies the effects of disruption of business functions and processes. It also uses the information to make decisions about recovery priorities and strategies.

FEMA provides an operational and financial impact worksheet to help run a business continuity analysis. The worksheet should be completed by business function and process managers who are well acquainted with the business. These worksheets will summarize the following:

• The impacts—both financial and operational—that stem from the loss of individual business functions and process
• Identifying when the loss of a function or process would result in the identified business impacts

Completing the analysis can help companies identify and prioritize the processes that have the most impact on the business's financial and operational functions. The point at which they must be recovered is generally known as the “recovery time objective.”

Business Continuity Plan vs. Disaster Recovery Plan

BCPs and disaster recovery plans are similar in nature, the latter focuses on technology and information technology (IT) infrastructure. BCPs are more encompassing—focusing on the entire organization, such as customer service and supply chain. 

BCPs focus on reducing overall costs or losses, while disaster recovery plans look only at technology downtimes and related costs. Disaster recovery plans tend to involve only IT personnel—which create and manage the policy. However, BCPs tend to have more personnel trained on the potential processes. 

Why Is Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Important?

Businesses are prone to a host of disasters that vary in degree from minor to catastrophic and business continuity plans (BCPs) are an important part of any business. BCP is typically meant to help a company continue operating in the event of threats and disruptions. This could result in a loss of revenue and higher costs, which leads to a drop in profitability. And businesses can't rely on insurance alone because it doesn't cover all the costs and the customers who move to the competition.

What Should a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Include?

Business continuity plans involve identifying any and all risks that can affect the company's operations. The plan should also determine how those risks will affect operations and implement safeguards and procedures to mitigate the risks. There should also be testing procedures to ensure these safeguards and procedures work. Finally, there should be a review process to make sure that the plan is up to date.

What Is Business Continuity Impact Analysis?

An important part of developing a BCP is a business continuity impact analysis which identifies the effects of disruption of business functions and processes. It also uses the information to make decisions about recovery priorities and strategies.

FEMA provides an operational and financial impact worksheet to help run a business continuity analysis.

These worksheets summarize the impacts—both financial and operational—that stem from the loss of individual business functions and processes. They also identify when the loss of a function or process would result in the identified business impacts.

Business continuity plans (BCPs) are created to help speed up the recovery of an organization filling a threat or disaster. The plan puts in place mechanisms and functions to allow personnel and assets to minimize company downtime. BCPs cover all organizational risks should a disaster happen, such as flood or fire.  

Federal Emergency Management Agency. " Business Process Analysis and Business Impact Analysis User Guide ." Pages 15 - 17.

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Federal Emergency Management Agency. " Business Process Analysis and Business Impact Analysis User Guide ." Pages 15-17.

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A practical guide to creating a contingency plan

The vast majority of failed projects and bankrupt companies had a plan and followed it. So why do these projects and companies end up failing?

Unexpected things happen that companies don’t plan for, and many fail to adapt in time.

The key: having a sound contingency plan. A contingency plan is all about expecting the unexpected and preparing to deal with worst-case scenarios ahead of time. This article will cover why you need a contingency plan, and walk you through step-by-step instructions for creating one. We’ll also provide a contingency planning template you can implement and use on monday.com immediately.

What is a contingency plan?

A contingency plan is a predefined set of actions that you will implement in response to specific future events that put your project or business at risk.

A simple example of a contingency plan is to back up all your website data. That way, if your website gets hacked, it will be easy to restore the data after regaining access and changing passwords.

Without that backup, the team might have to recreate the entire website from memory or build a website from scratch . That’s a significant expense and can mean several extra days (or weeks!) of downtime.

A contingency plan is about managing and lowering risk and setting yourself up for speedy disaster recovery.

What are the two types of contingencies in project management?

There are two types of contingencies that you should plan for: budget contingency & schedule contingency.

• Budget contingency is an additional amount of money that you allocate to your budget, so you can cover extra costs that might come up as the project progresses. If you don’t have a contingency budget, you might run into an unexpected cost that could send you over budget and risk the profit margin of your project.
• Schedule contingency is an additional amount of time that you bake into your project schedule, to allow for any unexpected delays or hiccups in your project progress. Without schedule contingency, you risk running over your project deadlines and disappointing stakeholders.

Contingency plan examples

Here are a few examples of how contingency planning could help save the day, no matter what happens:

Project contingency plan

Imagine that a key team member unexpectedly leaves the project. If you were contingency planning for this scenario, you might outline the following steps you could follow if you lost a key project team member:

• Identify who will take over the tasks of the departing team member, and what tasks still need doing
• Assess if any additional resources will be needed (such as an additional part-time project member from another team)
• Provide training sessions for other team members to ensure they can step in effectively
• Notify any stakeholders about the change and how it will be managed to minimize disruption and offer reassurance.

Business continuity plan

How about if a natural disaster disrupted operations at your primary office location? Could your business cope? With a continuity plan in place, you’ll turn things around quickly:

• Make sure all your employees have access to the necessary tools and systems so that they can work remotely if necessary
• Regularly back up all essential data to the cloud, and have a data recovery plan in place, in the event of loss of the hardware in your primary office
• Identify backup office space or plan for remote work options if the primary location becomes inaccessible
• Define communication channels that you’ll use in the event of a major disruption so that you can reach your employees to provide updates and instructions on how to proceed

Supply chain contingency plan

Do all your logistics depend on a few key suppliers? Then you should have a supply chain contingency plan in place, in case of unexpected production or shipping delays.

• Have more than one supplier for critical components, so this becomes less of a business risk.
• Maintain a buffer stock of your essential components, so that production won’t be held up by supplier delays
• Find a shipping company that offers expedited shipping options in case you have an urgent need
• Update your supplier contract to include penalties for delays and a procedure for resolving any disputes

Why contingency planning is important

Murphy’s Law specifies that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And any experienced project planner knows how true that is! Contingency planning can make or break your business:

It helps mitigate risk.

Contingency planning helps to identify potential risks and get ahead of them with a proactive plan. That way, even when things go wrong, you can minimize the disruption to operations and reduce your financial losses.

It makes your business more resilient.

Having a contingency plan in place enables you to respond to the unforeseen more effectively, adapt to changing conditions, and recover from setbacks more efficiently.

It keeps you compliant.

In many industries, contingency planning is mandated by regulatory requirements, so you’ll need these plans in place to avoid penalties and maintain good legal standing.

It increases customer trust.

Customers trust businesses that handle disruptions effectively. The ability to respond quickly and effectively when things go wrong will help build your reputation for great customer service.

Looking for a tool to make contingency planning easier? With monday.com, you can store all your contingency plans in a central location, communicate changes with stakeholders, and create automated workflows in response to unexpected events.

What are the characteristics of a good contingency plan?

Your contingency plan should include the following components:

List of risks

Begin by making a thorough identification of potential risks that could realistically occur. Depending on what kind of contingency plan you’re putting together, these could be all the risks that could impact your business, or the risks that could delay or disrupt a specific project or product.

For example, in terms of business-level contingency planning, you could list out:

• Natural disasters
• Technological failures
• Economic downturns
• Supply chain disruptions
• Sudden market changes

Response options

Your plan should then outline various responses that you could choose between, for each risk you’ve identified. These might be:

• Actions to mitigate the risk
• Ways to transfer the risk to another party (e.g. by buying insurance)
• Ways to accept and manage the risk

Plan of action

For each risk and response option, you should then add in a plan of action, including:

• Steps to take
• Who is responsible for each step
• Any resources you’ll need
• Any need to coordinate with other stakeholders or third parties

Communication management protocols

You’ll also want to make sure that you have a plan in place to communicate effectively with all stakeholders, including:

• Who needs to be notified
• The channels you’ll use for communication
• How often you’ll send out updates
• Any useful templates to use for messages

Trigger points

Decide in advance when you’ll activate a specific contingency response. For instance, you might have a particular threshold beyond which you’ll move to a contingency plan — such as the severity level of a natural disaster. You should also define who has the authority to make these decisions, and how the decision will be made (by committee or by chain of command, for instance.)

Testing and review

To keep your plan up to date, you should schedule regular tests and reviews. For instance, for a natural disaster contingency plan, you might want to run a drill once a year, to practice your response procedures and make sure that everything works as it should.

How to create a contingency plan

Let’s cover the basic contingency planning process and detail how to get yours up and running.

1. Map out essential processes.

What processes are essential to your business and safely delivering your product or service to customers?

If you’re a manufacturing company that ships directly to consumers, a simplified process list might look something like this:

• Getting raw materials from suppliers
• Manufacturing process
• Freight and shipping
• Packaging and warehousing
• Last-mile delivery

Looking at this list, you can see how vulnerable it is to natural disasters or even minor human errors.

Create an overview of every crucial process in your organization.

2. Create a list of risks for each process.

Once the process list is created, consider what might disrupt business continuity.

What can go wrong with each of these critical processes?

Let’s look at an example of what could go wrong with “last-mile delivery” …

• The driver can deliver single or multiple packages to the wrong address.
• The package can be damaged during delivery.
• The package could get lost at a distribution center.
• A truck full of packages could be involved in an accident.
• A flood could cripple the road system in a specific area.
• The driver could get delayed because a moose wants to lick salt splatter off the car (seriously, it’s a thing ).

And that’s only a preliminary list. Once you start thinking about it, you’ll realize how many things you rely on to avoid going wrong, even for fundamental processes.

Every business process is vulnerable to some sort of emergency or human error and requires a solid risk management process .

3. Evaluate the potential impact and likelihood of each risk.

Once the risks are identified, it’s essential to determine how they could impact your business.

Are they likely to happen? How large will the impact on your business if they do occur?

Most companies use “qualitative risk assessment” to do this.

PMI uses the following risk exposure assessment table — also called the probability impact matrix — to evaluate … the probability and impact of potential risks.

( Image Source )

First, rate the severity of the impact on a scale from 1–100. Then, multiply with a percentage based on how likely it is to occur.

4. Calculate costs and contingency reserves, and identify issues to mitigate.

The quantitative risk assessment approach is less common — but more practical — to assess the potential cost of each risk.

How much would each risk potentially cost your business? To get a better overview, add these 4 columns to the risk register template :

• Full potential loss from the event
• Expected loss from the event
• Cost of response (post-event)
• Cost of mitigation (pre-event)

This means you can make an educated decision when budgeting contingency reserves into project plans and yearly budgets.

During the risk analysis , estimate the potential costs of the adverse event.

EXAMPLE: if your online store goes down, multiply the average online sales revenue per hour with expected downtime. Make one pessimistic and one realistic estimate.

Your hosting service may also have a flat fee for restoring sites, which would be your response cost. If these costs are unreasonably high and the event is likely, estimate the costs of a mitigation effort. In this case, it could be a firewall and extra procedures, like 2-factor authentication, an important security system , for all employees.

Budget in those costs. An accurate budget is the first part of emergency response and prevention. Without enough cash, your team won’t be able to put any response plans into action.

5. Create a response plan for prioritized events.

Create a response plan for events by exploring the following questions:

• What can be done ahead of time to minimize any adverse effects on the event? For example, backing up data, carrying extra stock, or having more employees on call.
• What can be done immediately after the event to minimize the impact? For example, ordering more from a secondary supplier, rerouting another vehicle, or bringing in on-call staff.

The specifics depend on your company’s unique processes and situation.

6. Share the contingency plan.

A contingency plan only works if it’s used when things go wrong—and that means that everyone in your organization knows to reach for the plan in times of trouble. To make sure that happens:

• Identify who needs to be aware of and involved in contingency planning.
• Choose appropriate communication methods for each stakeholder group. For instance, department heads may need specific meetings to focus on their section of the plan. Key employees might need a training session.
• Create the plan in an accessible, centralized location, such as a monday.com board. That way, everyone involved can access the plan, and you can keep it updated at all times.
• Encourage feedback on the plan, such as running an employee survey to check understanding and seek ideas for changes and improvements.
• Post reminders and updates on your shared internal communication channels.

7. Monitor and review the contingency plan.

If you want your contingency plans to protect your business, you have to keep them up to date. That means you’ll need to schedule regular reviews of the plan to check that it’s still relevant and aligned with your changing business.

Remember to communicate updates or revisions to all relevant stakeholders, and provide opportunities for additional training if needed.

Manage your contingency planning process with monday.com

Having your business contingency plan on paper is an excellent place to start. But it won’t translate to how your entire company will tackle a crisis.

That’s where monday.com comes in. Our flexible digital workspace gives you everything necessary to ensure everyone follows the contingency plan when they need to.

Use our pre-built contingency plan template to get you started 

Make sure that no employee is left clueless during a crisis. Our contingency plan template has everything you need to start the planning process.

With our pre-built template, you can feel confident you’re following best practice contingency planning, so your business will run smoothly even in the case of unexpected events.

Use integrations to notify someone of an event automatically 

With monday.com’s powerful integrations and automations, you can respond to unfavorable events more quickly.

For example, you can immediately create and assign a work item whenever a customer submits a bug report.

This approach helps avoid another potential problem: customer service failing to report bug reports to your development team.

Monitor project status at all times in dashboards to avoid bottlenecks and domino effects.

The best time to start acting is before a catastrophic event that puts your entire project or business at risk.

To do that, your management team needs a clear understanding of the project’s status at all times.

Use the 30,000-foot view every manager needs to avoid predictable project delays and failures and check that project controls are working properly.

Contingency plans are a must-have.

When starting a project or business, most people plan according to the status quo. Unfortunately, that’s a best-case scenario and not helpful in the real world.

A contingency plan helps you prepare for worst-case scenarios and keep your project afloat, should anything go wrong.

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Contingency Plan Examples

40 detailed contingency plan examples (& free templates).

Good strategies always involve a contingency plan in case the original plan backfires. In some cases, the original plan may not be as successful as you expect which is why you need a contingency plan example to achieve the same goal . We have heard the term “Plan B” before and this in its simplest way, is a contingency plan.

Table of Contents

• 1 Contingency Plan Examples
• 2 What is a contingency plan?
• 3 Contingency Plan Templates
• 4 When to use a contingency plan?
• 5 Using a contingency plan example in risk project management
• 6 Business Contingency Plan Templates
• 7 Steps in contingency planning
• 8 Creating your contingency plan
• 9 Contingency Plan Samples
• 10 The challenges that may come with contingency planning

What is a contingency plan?

The steps taken by an organization when an unexpected situation or event occurs is a contingency plan. A contingency plan example may be positive like when there’s an unexpected surplus in the cash flow. But more often than not, the contingency planning process mostly refers to negative events.

The events which might have a bearing on the organization’s financial health, reputation or on its ability to continue with business operations. Such events may include natural disasters, fire, network failure, and a data breach, to name a few.

Having a contingency plan template helps you make sure that there’s always a continuity in the business. Most of the bigger business organizations have sets of business contingency plan templates for various potential threats. These undergo extensive research and the resulting appropriate responses get subjected to full practice even before the crisis occurs.

You can consider a contingency plan as a proactive approach as compared to crisis management, which is more of a reactive approach. Having a contingency plan ensures that you’re always prepared for any eventuality. Conversely, a plan for crisis management enables you to control the response after the eventuality occurs.

Contingency Plan Templates

When to use a contingency plan?

Also, keep in mind that the design of a contingency plan template is only for risks that can you can identify and not for unknown or unidentified risks. This is for the simple reason that you cannot make a plan if you don’t know the risk.

It’s also worth noting that contingency plans don’t only exist in anticipation should things go wrong but you can also create one to make the most of strategic opportunities.

For instance, you have come to know of a new type of software for training that’s about to get released soon. Should this occur during the project, you can create a contingency plan on how to include this into the training stage of your project .

Using a contingency plan example in risk project management

As mentioned earlier, a contingency plan example responds to a negative event that might affect or tarnish the reputation of an organization or its financial standing. In business, however, a business contingency plan template isn’t always negative. There are cases of positive contingency plans too.

Also, keep in mind that the contingency planning process is a proactive strategy, unlike crisis management which is a reaction to something that has happened. A contingency plan accounts for any disruptive events to ensure that the company is always prepared if and when such events should occur.

Contingency plans are usually part of the risk management department and project managers should know that the plan is simply an outline. However, there are times when the project may extend beyond this. This means that the manager can be more prepared to make changes in the plan if he deems it would be more effective.

Risk management isn’t the same as the contingency planning process. Risk management is more about establishing, assessing, mitigating, avoiding, sharing, transferring, and accepting risks, whereas a contingency plan focuses on developing steps for when a risk occurs. But they share a common aspect. They both describe the steps to take in such an occurrence.

In its simplest form, a contingency plan definition is what you should do when an unexpected event takes place. Simpler still is “What if….?”, then creating an outline of the steps that answer this question.

Business Contingency Plan Templates

Steps in contingency planning

Project management always involves several entry points for risks that you have to consider for a contingency plan example. Here are some risk factors that you should take into account for a contingency plan template:

• The physical aspect where losses can happen caused by damage to facilities, equipment or information because of natural disasters or an accident.
• Technical issues may be a risk factor too, where the system stops functioning as needed for the delivery of the project as scheduled and within the budget.
• Human resources can be another risk too as teams may leave projects, get sick or get terminated.
• In a much larger scale, risk factors beyond the project manager’s control are social and political changes. As an example, you can work with a contract which can drastically change depending on who’s in control. Nothing remains stable with risk factors. Communities can even protest against projects and bring them to a halt.
• There are also liability issues where there are potential threats in the form of compensation plans and legal actions.

Here are the basic steps in the contingency planning process:

• Make it a point to know which resources can you use in the event of an emergency and in which part of the contingency plan you can apply these resources.
• Identify important dates that, if you miss, might negatively affect the plan. For instance, getting approval from committees which rarely meet.
• Know your plan. Check its weaknesses and strengths. Identify slack which you may find.
• Check for any points in the plan where you can apply alternative routes and evaluate each scenario to make your plan more flexible.
• Use your knowledge and experience in discerning patterns in the ebb and flow of the activities in your project to make it more efficient.

Creating your contingency plan

You need a lot of planning and research when creating a contingency plan example. But planning ahead, with each plan makes things easier for you. When creating one for your company, follow these steps:

• Identify your resources and prioritize them Do research throughout the organization so you can identify then prioritize the integral resources in your organization.
• Identify the most significant risks You need to identify any potential threats to the researched resources. If you need to, meet with executives, and employees to get more a holistic picture of how events can affect your resources. To be more precise, bring with you a consultant or a specialist in the identification of risks.
• Draft a contingency plan template Although you may come up with plans for each of the risks individually, it’s recommended to begin with the threats you consider high priority. This refers to the ones which have a high likelihood of occurring and would have the most significant impacts. As time goes by, you may start working toward coming up with plans for the lower-priority risks. When drafting plans for identified risks, start asking yourself about the steps to take so that the organization can go back to normal operations. Take into account factors like employee activity, communications, timelines , and staff responsibilities. Based on these, you can then make a plan for each of the risks.
• Share the plans Make sure that all employees and stakeholders have access to each plan as soon as you’ve completed them and had them approved. You may want to consider using a mobile application for this very important step. This could make the contingency plan together with similar documents directly available to all of the employees through their mobile service. This method also ensures that every employee has easy access to the updated plans for when the need arises.
• Maintain the plans As the organization undergoes changes, make sure that you reflect such changes in your business contingency plan template. There’s also a need to rehearse the plan with stakeholders regularly so that the key players know their roles and responsibilities.

Contingency Plan Samples

The challenges that may come with contingency planning

Managers will always get confronted with challenges that they should consider before and while creating contingency plans. These challenges include:

• Only focusing on “Plan A” By nature, people only want to work on a single solution. This may be the reason why a contingency plan doesn’t get the proper attention it deserves. They all hope “Plan A” succeeds and they think that focusing too much on “Plan B” might potentially be damage their success. As managers, they should stress how important a contingency plan is as it serves as your safeguard to help facilitate success instead of obstructing it. This means that the contingency plan should never get shelved. Instead, you must make it readily accessible.
• A small probability of using the plan Because of the small probability that you will ever use the contingency plan, many believe there’s no urgency in creating one. That means the plan could find itself at the very bottom of the company’s list of tasks if anyone will create it at all. There is a need for this plan for any project, even if the company has to invest a little more in it. When you decide to create a comprehensive contingency plan, you will feel the pay off when you end up needing it.

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Contingency Planning: Why it's important and who should have it

Contingency planning, also known as disaster recovery planning, is a crucial component of any business. It involves identifying potential risks and developing strategies to minimize the impact of these risks on the business. The purpose of contingency planning is to enable businesses to quickly recover from disruptive events and resume normal operations. In this blog post, we'll discuss why contingency planning is important and which parts of the company should have it in place.

Why is Contingency Planning Important?

Contingency planning is essential for businesses to minimize the impact of disruptions caused by natural disasters, cyber attacks, and other unexpected events. The following are some of our reasons why we think contingency planning is important:

Minimizes Downtime: Contingency planning can help businesses quickly recover from a disruption, minimizing downtime and enabling them to resume normal operations as soon as possible.

Reduces Costs: Contingency planning can help businesses minimize the costs associated with a disruption, such as lost revenue, increased expenses, and damage to property.

Protects Reputation: Contingency planning can help businesses protect their reputation by minimizing the impact of a disruption on their customers and stakeholders.  

Which Parts of the Company Should Have Contingency Planning in Place?

• Sales and Marketing: If a company's website or e-commerce platform is down due to a cyber attack, it can prevent customers from placing orders or accessing important information. This can affect the sales and marketing department's ability to generate revenue and communicate with customers.  
• Finance: If a company's financial data is compromised due to a cyber attack, it can lead to financial losses or regulatory penalties. This can affect the finance department's ability to manage budgets and make financial decisions.  
• Legal: If a natural disaster or other crisis prevents employees from coming into work, it can impact the legal department's ability to meet legal deadlines or respond to legal inquiries. This can affect the company's legal compliance and reputation.  
• Operations: If employees are unable to come into work due to a crisis, it can impact the operations department's ability to deliver products or services to customers. This can affect the company's revenue and customer satisfaction.  
• Procurement: If a crisis disrupts the supply chain, it can impact the procurement department's ability to acquire raw materials or goods. This can affect the company's ability to manufacture products and deliver them to customers.  
• Customer Service: If a crisis disrupts operations, it can impact the customer service department's ability to respond to customer inquiries or complaints. This can affect the company's reputation and customer satisfaction.

In conclusion,

Contingency planning is critical for businesses to minimize the impact of disruptions caused by natural disasters, cyber attacks, and other unexpected events. IT, HR, and operations are just a few of the areas of a company that should have contingency planning in place. By preparing for potential risks, businesses can recover quickly and continue to provide products and services to their customers.

At LucidTrac, we understand the importance of contingency planning for businesses. That's why we offer a cloud-based ERP software solution that is designed to help companies prepare for unexpected events. Our software allows businesses to automate and streamline their operations, which can improve their ability to respond to disruptions. Our solution provides real-time visibility into business processes, enabling businesses to make informed decisions quickly. With LucidTrac, companies can access their critical data and processes from anywhere, at any time, which is particularly important during times of crisis. We are committed to providing a robust and reliable software solution that helps businesses stay operational during disruptions, ensuring that they can continue to provide products and services to their customers.

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What Are the Crucial 4 Components of a Contingency Plan?

Updated on: June 17, 2023

I’ve seen it all. The constant threats and ever-changing landscape make it imperative that every business has a contingency plan in place. Unfortunately, many businesses make the mistake of thinking a contingency plan is just a backup plan. But in reality, it’s so much more than that.

A contingency plan is a comprehensive strategy that includes backup plans, procedures, and protocols designed to minimize disruption and ensure continuity of critical business processes in the event of a crisis.

But what are the crucial components of a contingency plan that businesses often forget? In this article, I’ll share the four essential components that every contingency plan must include in order to be effective. From risk assessment to communication protocols, these components will ensure that your business can weather any storm. So let’s get started.

What are the four 4 major components of a contingency plan?

• Business Impact Analysis: A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is the process of evaluating the potential impact of an event on an organization’s operations. It helps in identifying critical business functions, assessing their vulnerability to potential threats, and defining recovery objectives for each. A BIA is crucial as it forms the basis for developing the other components of the contingency plan.
• Incident Response Plan: An Incident Response Plan (IRP) outlines the steps that an organization needs to take in response to a potential incident. It defines roles and responsibilities of individuals, procedures for communication, and objectives for containment, eradication, and recovery. Developing an effective IRP is critical to minimize the impact of an incident.
• Disaster Recovery Plan: A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) outlines the steps that an organization needs to take to recover its IT infrastructure and data in the event of a disaster. It includes procedures for backup and restoration, infrastructure recovery, and testing procedures to ensure the effectiveness of the plan.
• Business Continuity Plan: A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) focuses on ensuring that critical business functions can continue after an incident. It outlines strategies and procedures to restore operations to a normal level as quickly as possible. A BCP considers the impact on people, processes, and technology during recovery and ensures that the organization can continue to function effectively.

In conclusion, it is essential for every organization to have a contingency plan in place to combat any unforeseen event and minimize their impact. The four main components of a contingency plan, the Business Impact Analysis, the Incident Response Plan, the Disaster Recovery Plan, and the Business Continuity Plan, work together to ensure that an organization can respond and recover from any disruptive event effectively.

???? Pro Tips:

1. Identify potential risks and threats: To create an effective contingency plan, it is necessary to identify and assess potential risks and threats that can severely affect your business operations. These could include natural disasters, cyber-attacks, employee strikes, or pandemics.

2. Develop a response strategy: Once you have identified the potential risks, you need to create a response strategy for each scenario. This should include clear instructions for your staff, plans for evacuation or sheltering in place, and procedures for the recovery of critical IT systems or data.

3. Establish communication channels: Communication is essential during a crisis. You need to establish clear lines of communication with your staff, customers, suppliers, and emergency services. Test these channels regularly to ensure they are reliable and effective.

4. Assign roles and responsibilities: Every member of your team should have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities during an emergency. This should include designated leaders for each response team, trained first responders, and staff responsible for IT recovery.

5. Review and revise the plan regularly: A contingency plan is not a one-time effort. Regular reviews and revisions will ensure your plan remains relevant and effective, taking into account any changes in your business operations, staffing, or infrastructure. Test your plan regularly to identify areas for improvement and update it accordingly.

Contingency Planning: Four Main Elements

Contingency planning is a crucial aspect of business operations, particularly when it comes to mitigating and responding to potential disasters and other major events. A contingency plan refers to the process of creating and implementing a set of procedures and protocols that are designed to help businesses respond to major emergencies in a prompt and effective manner. In order to create an effective contingency plan, it is essential to include four major components: the Business Impact Analysis, the Incident Response Plan, the Disaster Recovery Plan, and the Business Continuity Plan.

The Business Impact Analysis

The Business Impact Analysis is a critical component of any contingency plan. This element involves assessing the potential impact of a disaster or other major emergency on the business. The analysis should include a comprehensive review of all critical systems, processes, and personnel that are essential to the operation of the business. This analysis should also consider the financial impact of a disaster and identify the potential risks associated with different types of disasters.

Once the Business Impact Analysis has been completed, businesses can use this information to prioritize their response efforts, and allocate resources accordingly. This is a key step in developing an effective contingency plan, as it ensures that businesses are able to respond to the most critical elements of a disaster in an efficient and effective manner.

Key Points:

Incident Response Plan

The Incident Response Plan is another critical element of a contingency plan. This component involves developing a set of procedures and protocols for responding to a disaster or other major emergency. The Incident Response Plan should include a detailed list of emergency contacts, as well as a step-by-step guide to the actions that need to be taken in the event of a disaster.

In addition, the Incident Response Plan should also include a set of guidelines for communicating with stakeholders, such as employees, customers, and vendors. This communication plan should include a clear and concise message that reassures stakeholders that the business is taking appropriate action and provides information on what to expect in terms of continuity of operations.

Disaster Recovery Plan

The Disaster Recovery Plan is another essential component of a contingency plan. This element involves creating and implementing a set of procedures that are designed to restore critical business functions after a disaster or other major emergency. The Disaster Recovery Plan should include a comprehensive list of critical systems and processes, as well as a backup plan to ensure that these systems and processes can be quickly and effectively restored.

In addition, the Disaster Recovery Plan should also include an assessment of any potential vulnerabilities that may exist within the business’ IT infrastructure, such as security breaches and other cyber attacks. This assessment should include a plan for mitigating these risks and ensuring ongoing security for critical systems and data.

Business Continuity Plan

The Business Continuity Plan is the final component of a contingency plan and is perhaps the most critical. This element involves creating and implementing a set of procedures and protocols that are designed to ensure ongoing operations and minimize downtime in the event of a disaster or other major emergency. The Business Continuity Plan should include detailed procedures for backup systems, as well as a plan for managing key personnel and other resources.

In case of a large-scale disaster, it is essential to ensure that all critical business functions can continue to operate, even if the main office or facility is inaccessible. The Business Continuity Plan should also include a detailed communication plan to ensure that all stakeholders are kept informed of the situation and any changes to the plan as it is implemented.

In conclusion, creating an effective contingency plan is an essential aspect of business operations. By including the four major components of the Business Impact Analysis, the Incident Response Plan, the Disaster Recovery Plan, and the Business Continuity Plan, businesses can ensure that they are prepared to respond to a wide range of potential emergencies. With careful planning and preparation, businesses can greatly reduce the impact of disasters and other major events, ensuring that they are able to continue operating and providing essential services to customers and clients.

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Ministers weigh contingency plan for collapse of Thames Water

Whitehall officials and Ofwat, the water regulator, have begun assessing the scope for a special administration of the UK’s biggest water company, Sky News learns.

City editor @MarkKleinmanSky

Wednesday 28 June 2023 10:30, UK

The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile.

Sky News has learnt that ministers and Ofwat, the industry regulator, have started to hold discussions about the possibility of placing Thames Water into a special administration regime (SAR) that would effectively take the company into temporary public ownership.

Such an insolvency process was used by the government when the energy supplier Bulb collapsed in 2021 , sparking concerns that it could cost taxpayers billions of pounds.

Ultimately, the Bulb administration is likely to have cost the public purse a far smaller sum, but water industry ownership restrictions which prevent consolidation mean this figure could be dwarfed if Thames Water was to fail.

The talks within Whitehall, which involve the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Ofwat and the Treasury, remain at a preliminary stage and relate at the moment only to contingency plans which may not need to be activated.

Read more: From privatisation to profits: How providing clean water became a murky business

Thames Water serves 15 million customers across London and the southeast of England, and has come under intense pressure in recent years because of its poor record on leaks, sewage contamination, executive pay and shareholder dividends.

On Tuesday, Sarah Bentley, its chief executive for the last three years, resigned with immediate effect , saying: "The foundations of the turnaround that we have laid position the company for future success to improve service for customers and environmental performance."

In March, however, Sky News revealed that Thames Water was facing crunch talks over its finances and had hired Rothschild, the investment bank, and the law firm Slaughter & May, to explore financing options for the company.

The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday night that Thames Water was still trying to raise £1bn from shareholders and that AlixPartners had been drafted in to advise on the company's operational turnaround plans.

One industry source said that regulators had also sought advice from restructuring experts in recent weeks, although their identity was unclear.

Taking Thames Water into temporary public ownership would inevitably fuel calls from critics of the privatised water industry to renationalise all of the country's major water companies.

Thames Water is owned by a consortium of pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, many of which are understood to be sceptical about delivering additional funding.

Its largest shareholder is Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers), a vast Canadian pension fund, which holds a stake of nearly 32%, according to Thames Water's website.

Others include China Investment Corporation, the country's sovereign wealth fund; the Universities Superannuation Scheme, the UK's biggest private pension fund; and Infinity Investments, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Hermes, which manages the BT Group pension scheme, is also a shareholder.

Thames Water employs about 7,000 people, and serves nearly a quarter of Britain's population.

Read more from Sky News: Hundreds of Boots stores to close British actor confirmed dead after remains identified

Ms Bentley's exit, which came soon after a row about her declaration that she had surrendered a controversial annual bonus, also reflects deeper divisions about how to address the mounting crisis at the company.

Earlier this year, she said she was "heartbroken" about the company's historical failings, blaming "decades of underinvestment".

Alastair Cochran and Cathryn Ross have been named joint interim chief executives as a search for Ms Bentley's replacement is conducted.

Thames Water has been fined numerous times, and is facing a deluge of regulatory probes.

In 2021, it was hit with a £4m penalty for allowing untreated sewage to escape into a river and park, while in August 2021, it was ordered to pay £11m for overcharging thousands of customers .

The range of financing options available to Thames Water's board - whose chairman, the former SSE chief Ian Marchant, is also due to step down imminently - appears to be limited.

Nearly £1.4bn of the company's bonds mature by the end of next year, with Ofwat price controls meaning water companies have little scope to generate additional income.

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In an investor update published last September, Ms Bentley said that "the difficult external environment has increased the challenge of our turnaround".

A year ago, the company said it had agreed with shareholders the injection of £500m of new equity funding, with a further £1bn expected to be delivered by the end of next year.

The additional shareholder funding formed part of a £2bn expenditure increase, taking its total spending during the current five-year regulatory period to £11.6bn.

In its September announcement, Thames Water said shareholders had "further evidenced their support for [Thames Water] and its business plan through an Equity Support Letter where the shareholders have committed to hold investment committee meetings (for their respective institutions) as a path to obtaining approval (in the discretion of the investment committee) for funding their pro rata share of conditional commitments in respect of the further £1bn of additional equity which is assumed in TWUL's business plan".

"Whilst this is not a legal commitment to fund…the [Thames Water] board believes it is reasonable to incorporate this additional £1bn of equity funding in its assessment."

The company has not paid a dividend to its owners for the last six years.

Thames Water is not the only major water company to face questions about its financial resilience and operational track record.

Ofwat has also been in talks with others, including Southern Water and Yorkshire Water, in recent years about strengthening balance sheets amid performance issues.

The financial collapse of Britain's biggest water company, and its implications for the model of water ownership, would inevitably become a major political debating point in the run-up to the next general election.

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Some critics of privatisation have demanded that the government consider mutual ownership structures, which would prohibit returns to shareholders and guarantee that profits would be reinvested in improving the sector's dire performance, while upgrading water infrastructure assets.

In total, tens of billions of pounds have been handed to shareholders in water utilities across Britain since privatisation, stoking public and political anger given the industry's frequent mishaps.

DEFRA, Ofwat and Thames Water were all contacted for comment on Tuesday evening.

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How to Build Resilient Businesses for Passive Retirement Income

Deanna Ritchie

• Managing Editor
• Posted on June 28th, 2024

These days, it’s relatively easy to start and manage an online business. That’s why so many retirees are using side businesses that generate passive income as part of their retirement plans.

However, if you want that passive income stream to continue, you’ll need to make sure your businesses are resilient.

How do you do it?

Table of Contents

The Power of Businesses for Passive Income

It’s hard to overstate just how powerful a passive income business can be for generating retirement income and generally stabilizing your financial life in retirement. The idea is to create a business entity that’s externally and independently capable of producing income indefinitely into the future – without requiring much of your time on an ongoing basis.

Depending on how strict you want to be with definitions, you may reasonably assert that there’s no such thing as a truly passive income business, as all businesses require periodic maintenance and upkeep. Still, even a “sort of” passive income business can be useful.

These are just some of the reasons why.

Broad Portfolio Diversification

A passive income business is a nice addition to your portfolio and can help you diversify your assets and income sources. You may already own dividend stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, and other assets, but adding a passive income generating business to the mix can function as an extra layer of security and a measure that can make your income generation even more consistent. This is especially true if you have multiple types of passive income businesses as part of your overall portfolio.

Functional Versatility

Businesses can do almost anything. You can sell products and services in almost any conceivable industry. Or, you can develop new technologies and sell them. You can buy and manage real estate as part of your business operations. And, you can even use institutional crypto trading to get exposure to the crypto market. In fact, in many cases, it’s beneficial to build a business that can do many different things, as this will allow it to generate more total income and – appealing to the main point of this article – become more resilient.

Running a business is generally stressful and time-consuming. But when you have a business capable of generating passive income, you’ll have a path to total autonomy. This makes passive income businesses especially useful for prospective retirees who plan on retiring in the near future. You can spend some of your older working years working hard to get your business up and running. When it’s time to retire, you can gradually pull out and allow the business to run on its own.

Legacy Impact

Some retirees appreciate passive income businesses because of their longevity. If you can build a business capable of lasting decades, you can include it as part of your estate and leave it to your beneficiaries. You may also enjoy the idea of leaving behind a legacy – and continuing to serve your most loyal customers.

Personal Interest

Of course, some retirees choose to establish passive income businesses out of personal interest. If you’re genuinely interested in or excited about the business itself, it will function as a kind of stimulating hobby well into your retirement. It’s a great way to stay connected, stay intellectually active, and have something interesting to do once you’re done with your primary career.

Choosing the Right Type of Business

Much of your success in this area will depend on your ability to choose the right type of business. There are many different avenues for developing businesses capable of generating passive income, but not all of them are equally resilient.

These are some of your best options, though if you exercise some creativity, you can probably generate many more ideas.

Real Estate Management

Real estate has historically been a safe, lucrative investment asset. Accordingly, you could consider creating an entire business around the acquisition or management of real estate assets.

Premium Content

Premium content is another relatively easy way to make passive income . You can create pieces of content with timeless value, and then sell them across many different outlets indefinitely. Books, lectures, and even films are just a few examples here.

Affiliate Linking

If you can build a website or platform that gets a significant amount of traffic, you can generate passive income with affiliate linking. Essentially, this means offering links to external products and services and earning a small commission for each sale you help to establish.

If you have particularly advanced knowledge or expertise in a given area, you can also build a passive income business that sells a useful course. Once the course curriculum is finalized, it can essentially run on autopilot.

If you have software development and technical expertise, you can create a business around a mobile app. Depending on the type of app you create, you can charge money for it outright or charge people for a recurring subscription or access to premium features. There’s no limit to the types of apps you can create.

The Resilience Factor

It’s not enough for a business to consistently generate passive income, though that is a great start. You also need to consider the resilience level of that business if you’re going to use it for retirement income – and especially if you’re planning on leaving the business to beneficiaries as part of your estate.

Resilience is a measure of how easily and how well a business can survive in the face of threats and risks. Every business, no matter the niche, industry, or competence of its creator, is going to face external challenges. The real question is whether your business is capable of standing up to those challenges.

Decently resilient businesses should be able to tackle small risks and periodic threats with minimal effort and a high rate of survival. But if you’re planning on living another 10, 20, 30 years or more, or if you want your business to significantly persist after you’re gone, you’ll need to spend more time and effort focusing on developing resilience.

Identify Risks and Threats

The first and arguably most important phase of this process is identifying the risks and threats that could jeopardize your business. The nature of your business will dictate what types of risks and threats are most important to consider, but these are some of the most common to identify:

Management/Leadership Issues

For many businesses that fail, the root cause can be traced back to poor management or leadership . Even if it’s functioning mostly passively, you’ll likely be the owner and primary leader of this business for the duration of your lifetime. That said, it’s still important to have good team members and consultants who can handle things in your absence and a reliable candidate to fill your shoes when you’re no longer able to conduct operations on your own.

Economic Downturns

A big economic downturn would hypothetically harm most types of businesses, but small and fragile businesses have the potential to shatter during even a moderate recession. It’s important to bolster your business’s finances so that it can continue running, even during a temporary dry spell.

New Competition

If you have the only course on the market for a given subject, you should have no trouble attracting a steady stream of customers. But what happens when someone offers a course that is better or cheaper than yours? If you want your business to be resilient, you need to have a plan for how to tackle new competition.

Evolving Technologies or Needs

Some businesses become obsolete due to evolving technologies or needs. Kodak, while not a passive income business, was an industry leader until it rigidly adhered to a technology that was quickly becoming obsolete. How can you make sure your business continues even as consumer needs and available technologies progress?

Cyberthreats

Resilience also demands your attention to possible cyberthreats. If a hacker or social engineer compromises your website, will your entire business collapse? What are the potential damages of a data breach, and how can you prevent one?

There are specific strategies that can help you guard against these risks, but also general strategies that can help you protect against all of them simultaneously. We’ll be exploring some of the most important resilience building strategies in both categories.

Diversify Your Business’s “Portfolio”

First, work on diversifying the portfolio of your business. Just as you need to diversify your investment portfolio to minimize risk, you should diversify your business operations.

Products and Services

For starters, you could offer a broader range of products and services. If changing technologies render one of your products obsolete, or if a new competitor offers a better version of your core product, having a robust selection of other products and services can help you retain most of your income.

Streams of Income

You can also diversify the streams of income that your business is capable of generating. This is very similar to offering different types of products and services, but sometimes, you can generate new streams of income without having to innovate. As a simple example, if you own a real estate management operation that keeps an apartment building running, you could install vending machines and coin-operated laundry machines to generate income on the side.

Target Markets/Customers

You may also be interested in diversifying the target markets and customers that you serve. This way, if one of your audience segments chooses an alternative competitor, or if one of those segments no longer has the financial means to pay for your products and services, your business can continue operating relatively seamlessly.

Keep in mind that most of these strategies can simultaneously improve the resilience of your business and increase the total amount of income you generate . This makes them ideal for a wide range of business-building retirees.

Additionally, if you can’t find a way to diversify these items within your main business, you may find it beneficial to diversify your business portfolio by creating multiple smaller businesses. Having three small, passive income businesses that sell different things is similar in risk to having a single passive income business that sells three different things.

Improve Visibility and Tracking

It’s a good idea to improve visibility and tracking within your organization. This is going to make it much easier to identify changing trends or worrying patterns, long before they become significant problems. Of course, the big downside here is that increased visibility and tracking is going to demand more of your time and energy, assuming you don’t already have personnel in place to handle this. Still, it’s worthwhile to put on your data analyst cap and measure everything you can to gauge the health of your business periodically.

Create Backups and Cybersecurity Strategies

Cyberthreats are rare, but they can be devastating, so it’s important to create backups and invest in cybersecurity. You should be aware of the biggest cyberthreats your business could face, and you should have strategies implemented to guard against them. Even simple upgrades, like using better passwords and installing a VPN, can benefit you. Also, you should make sure there are multiple backups of all your most important information, so if your primary sources are ever compromised, you can continue operations anyway.

Instate Good Leaders (and Plan Ahead)

Good leaders can foresee, prepare for, and overcome almost any conceivable risk or threat. That’s why it’s so important to have a good leader, as well as backup leaders, in place. Who do you trust to run things while you enjoy your retirement? Who is going to take over this business when you’re gone?

Create Contingency Plans

Finally, consider creating specific contingency plans for disaster scenarios and probable threats. For example, how would your business adapt if there was a sudden, unexpected 50 percent drop in the number of visitors to your website? In what ways can you get the edge over a new rival or competitor? If your cash flow begins to dry up, what strategies can you employ?

You don’t need to be able to predict the future. You just need to be able to speculate about the best ways to handle various threats. The more specific you are in your conceptual planning, the better.

With these strategies, you should be able to build more passive income businesses to fund your retirement – and you can make those businesses resilient. Establishing true resilience demands research, energy, and even a bit of creativity, but these upfront efforts will pay off if it means withstanding even a major single threat in your lifetime. And if you plan on leaving these business interests to your beneficiaries, they’ll thank you for creating something truly reliable and sustainable.

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• Education, training and skills
• Running and managing a school

Meeting digital and technology standards in schools and colleges

Digital leadership and governance standards.

Find out what standards your school or college should meet on digital leadership and governance.

Good digital technology governance:

• identifies roles and responsibilities
• establishes critical processes to manage digital technology
• ensures that up-to-date information on the school or college’s digital technology is available to support decision making

We refer to hardware, software and digital services as digital technology throughout the following standards.

The job titles in these standards may not fit in your educational setting, but the responsibilities described should be applied to the most relevant person.

You should complete the first 3 standards before moving to the last standard on creating your digital technology strategy. This is so you can successfully build your strategy in line with your school or college’s development plan.

Visit our standards page for more details on how to use the standards to help your school or college meet their digital technology needs.

Assign a senior leadership team (SLT) member to be responsible for digital technology 

Why this standard is important  .

Schools and colleges need a member of their SLT to: 

• have strategic oversight of all digital technology and how it fits with their development plan 
• create and manage the digital technology strategy led by the needs of staff and students, not the technology itself 
• help all staff to embed digital technology that meets staff and student needs 

Having clearly defined roles and responsibilities will help schools and colleges focus the digital technology strategy around their development plan. Without this focus, there’s a risk that: 

• the use of technology will only meet short-term needs that could potentially lead to additional unplanned costs 
• schools and colleges will be exposed to safeguarding and security issues 
• new digital technology will not be compatible with existing technology used by the school or college 

Who needs to be involved 

The headteacher or principal will have responsibility for making sure this standard is met by assigning a SLT digital lead.  

The SLT digital lead is usually someone with teaching experience. They will act as a link between: 

• technical staff 
• curriculum leads 
• the data protection officer
• the designated safeguarding lead
• school, college and trust business professionals or the finance team 
• the trust IT director or equivalent (if applicable) to align with the digital technology strategy 

How to meet this standard 

To meet this standard, the headteacher or principal should appoint someone who is responsible for digital technology. They do not need to be an expert, but some technical knowledge or interest could be advantageous for this role. 

They will be accountable for: 

• the delivery of the digital technology strategy based on teaching and learning outcomes and organisational needs 
• encouraging and supporting the use of digital technology across the school or college 
• reviewing the effectiveness of IT support to inform decision making and taking action, when necessary 
• identifying and acting on digital technology training needs for staff and students 

Governors or trustees should also consider assigning a digital link role within the governing body or board of trustees.  

When to meet this standard 

You will need to assign the role of the SLT digital lead within your school or college before you can create your digital technology strategy.

• Keep registers relating to hardware and systems up to date 

Why this standard is important 

A contracts register, asset register and information asset register will help your school or college to: 

• understand what digital data, equipment and systems you have
• manage digital data, equipment and systems effectively 
• keep track of buying and licensing so that schools or colleges can get better value for money when renewing software and hardware 

Not having these registers in place for digital technology could lead to: 

• budget pressures due to accidental renewal of subscriptions, software and hardware that might not be needed, or are not the best value for money 
• safeguarding and cyber security issues as software might not be up to date 
• lost learning and workload burdens if software or hardware is not budgeted for or supported 

To meet this standard, the senior leadership team ( SLT ) digital lead will need to work with the following people: 

• school, college or trust business professionals or the finance team

To meet this standard, schools and colleges should include digital technology within their: 

• contracts register 
• asset register 
• information asset register 

By including digital technology in these documents, schools and colleges will know what contracts, digital technology and data they have, and when they need to be reviewed. 

Contracts register 

The contracts register includes, but is not limited to: 

• subscriptions 
• contracts related to your broadband, IT support and technology provider 
• a list of your school or college’s approved apps 

It can also capture the value of the contracts which helps to monitor spend and make savings where possible. 

Commercial and procurement information should be updated by the business or finance team, and IT support should update technical information. This contract register must be kept up to date. 

Asset register 

An asset register is a log of all the physical digital technology and tools that are within the school or college and should detail: 

• what equipment you have 
• asset numbers 
• serial numbers 
• who it is assigned to 
• where it is within the school or college 
• when it was purchased
• how old it is – this may be different to how long you have owned it, as it may be second-hand equipment 
• when it is due for review so that you can consider a replacement or upgrade 
• date it was securely disposed of 

The SLT digital lead owns this register and is responsible for making sure processes are in place for IT support to keep the register up to date.  

Information asset register ( IAR ) 

An IAR is a log of the digital data that is held on staff and students and is owned by the data protection officer. The SLT digital lead is responsible for making sure there is a process in place for: 

• IT support to update the data protection officer on any digital technology data that needs to be included in the register 
• the data protection officer to use the existing IAR to identify and report any potential changes that may need to be made to your digital technology strategy to the SLT digital lead – for example, if your IAR identified the need for security improvements with your servers 
• reviewing the digital technology aspects of the IAR  

You should already be updating your registers every time something changes.  

However, the SLT digital lead should review these registers ahead of your next financial planning cycle, and before you move on to the next standard to create your digital technology strategy.  

 Related standards 

The following standards should also be considered when documenting and monitoring your data, equipment, and systems. 

Servers and storage standards 

• Servers and related storage platforms must be secure and follow data protection legislation  
• All server and related storage platforms should be kept and used in an appropriate physical environment  

Cyber security standards 

• Network devices should be known and recorded with their security features enabled, correctly configured and kept up-to-date  

Laptops, desktops and tablets standards 

• Devices should meet educational needs and support the digital technology strategy   
• Make sure devices are energy efficient, and they are bought and disposed of sustainably

Include digital technology within disaster recovery and business continuity plans 

You should have a process in place to review and update the disaster recovery and business continuity plans, including those related to digital technology.  

Not doing so will risk: 

• significant disruption to a school or college in the event of a disaster, such as a cyber attack 
• unplanned spend from a disaster that was not expected 
• potential loss of data or a data breach 

This process will help your school or college to continue to operate and provide teaching and learning even during emergencies. This will help prevent lost learning and will also mean that: 

• staff, students and parents or carers will know what to do and what to expect in an emergency 
• there will be a clear definition of what a ‘disaster’ looks like for your school or college 
• you can test your disaster recovery plan to identify gaps within it 

The senior leadership team ( SLT ) digital lead will be responsible for this standard, but will need input from:  

• the operational team (such as finance, IT support and estate management), teaching and other admin staff to understand risks and any actions that can be taken to avoid them 
• the designated safeguarding lead, who can advise on safeguarding needs and concerns in the event of a disaster 
• the data protection officer to provide advice for mitigating data risks and emergency responses 
• governors or trust leadership who will review, support and challenge these plans and provide sign-off, if required 
• any outsourced services or suppliers (for example, management information systems, broadband or cloud services) to understand their protocols and include them in plans 

Digital technology should work with your existing business continuity and disaster recovery plans. To do this you should either include digital technology in your existing plans or have a separate plan for digital technology. Both plans need to be reviewed and updated annually or when a significant change occurs.  

Once your plans have been completed, you should create a summary document with top-level details (such as key contacts for when a disaster occurs) to be shared securely with all staff. 

The business continuity and disaster recovery plans, including the summary documents, should be: 

• printed out to retain hard copies in case of an emergency, such as a cyber incident 
• kept online in a secure, shared folder location in the cloud, with remote access granted to those in your disaster recovery team 

Disaster recovery plan 

Your disaster recovery plan is a living document to use when a disaster takes place. It should be tested annually (at a minimum) to identify any gaps in knowledge or work needed within your digital technology estate.  

It is a set of rules to follow depending on the disaster and should include details such as: 

• a definition of what a disaster for digital technology means to your school or college, defined by how long you can function when the disaster takes place 
• who they are
• what they are responsible for
• their contact details 
• how you will test your disaster recovery plan – for example, simulating data loss or hardware failure 

Business continuity plan 

Your business continuity plan should look at: 

• assessing risks of digital technology 
• steps that can be taken to reduce risk 
• actions that need to be taken if risk occurs and there is a need for recovery 

Insurance companies may ask all schools and colleges for these documents as part of risk management. So, you should already be meeting this standard or be working towards meeting it. 

Related standards 

The following links will also help you to meet this standard. 

Broadband internet standards 

• Schools and colleges should have a backup broadband connection to ensure resilience and maintain continuity of service  
• Your business continuity and disaster recovery plan should include a regularly tested contingency plan in response to a cyber attack  

Cloud solution standards 

• Make sure that appropriate data backup provision is in place  
• Cloud solutions must follow data protection legislation  
• Cloud solutions should use ID and access management tools  

Filtering and monitoring standards 

Your filtering system should block harmful and inappropriate content, without unreasonably impacting teaching and learning  

You should have effective monitoring strategies that meet the safeguarding needs of your school or college  

• Servers and related storage platforms must be secure and follow data protection legislation

Have a digital technology strategy that is reviewed every year

Before you review this standard, please make sure you complete the first 3 standards in this topic called: 

• Assign a senior leadership team ( SLT ) member to be responsible for digital technology 
• Include digital technology within disaster recovery and business continuity plans

Creating a digital technology strategy that is aligned with your development plan will help to make sure: 

• the digital technology used meets the needs of staff and students 
• your budget, buying decisions and any risks are managed 
• staff and students receive the training they need to use digital technology safely and effectively 
• you can assess the impact of digital technology against your strategy 

Not having a strategy in place could lead to: 

• disrupted learning if the digital technology does not support curriculum delivery 
• potential compromises to safeguarding  
• an increased risk of a cyber attack 
• budget pressures if digital technology systems fail and need to be replaced 
• buying digital technology that is not suitable for the school or college’s educational vision 
• a lack of resources (such as the right roles, budget and funding) to support the use and replacement of digital technology  

The SLT digital lead is accountable for this standard and will coordinate and manage the digital technology strategy with input from: 

• subject leaders, teaching and learning leads, heads of year, and exam officers to understand their teaching and learning needs for both staff and students  
• IT support, who will assess the existing hardware and software for whether they are fit for purpose and help identify any potential risks and gaps in resources 
• the operational team (for example the school, college or trust business professional, finance team or IT support) to help support and inform budget planning 
• designated safeguarding lead and data protection officer to give advice and identify risks and issues related to their roles  
• the person responsible for special education needs and disabilities to identify accessibility, diversity and inclusion needs 

Your governing body, school board or board of trustees will support and challenge any plans and decisions made on the digital technology strategy.  

To create a strategy, you could: 

• get input from your own school or college community 
• speak to other schools and colleges who have been through a similar process 

The SLT digital lead will need to understand the school or college’s development plan to make sure the digital technology strategy supports this. They will also need to know your current digital technology estate. This should include gathering information on: 

• contracts and assets, including physical and data assets 
• current and committed digital technology spend 
• risks, including disaster recovery plan (contingency planning) and business continuity plan 
• what technology students have access to outside of their school or college 
• training and development needs for staff and students to be able to meet the vision of the digital technology strategy 

Developing a vision 

The SLT digital lead should develop a longer-term vision for digital technology to support all educational and organisational needs. The vision: 

• should support the school or college’s development plan and educational vision 
• should be sustainable and minimise the impact on the environment 
• could be informed by stakeholders and by visiting other schools and colleges with similar needs to yours 

Creating and managing the strategy 

Once the vision has been finalised, the SLT digital lead should create a minimum 2-year strategy. This will take into consideration the changes in digital technology and the longer-term plans for what might need to be refreshed or replaced.  

The SLT digital lead will also need to: 

• revisit and review the strategy annually (at a minimum) and amend it in line with any changes 
• share a top-level summary of the strategy to key stakeholders 

To meet this standard, you will need to have met the previous 3 standards above. Once you have completed those, this standard can then be completed before your next budget cycle. 

The following standards should also be considered when creating your digital technology strategy:  

• cyber security  
• filtering and monitoring  
• laptop, desktop and tablet
• servers and storage  

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