Assignment : Contingency Planning

Let us consider the following scenario:

You work for a small company with less than fifty employees and a very small IT budget (less than 2% of the total budget of the company).

You report to the chief financial officer of the company.

You have been asked to develop a business continuity plan, but you have concerns over the allotted budget and resources for contingency planning in IT. You believe that a proper business continuity plan will require additional financial resources. You want to convince your boss that a business continuity plan is a vital component of an information security proposal in any business, small or large. You must also convince your boss that the current budget is insufficient for a solid business continuity plan.

Tasks:

In a cover letter, describe business continuity planning from a small business perspective.

Discuss the potential impact of a business continuity plan on relationships between small businesses and their customer base.

Discuss how your plan will require more than 2% of the total company's budget and why it is necessary and important. Include in your cover letter a request for additional funds.

Develop an ideal business continuity plan for a small business that mitigates threats and minimizes risks to a company, with less emphasis on costs. Your plan should evaluate at least five of the critical elements of business continuity planning such as:

Data backup and recovery
Mission-critical systems
Financial and operational assessments
Keeping the business moving without IT
Informing customers
Contingency operations
Alternate communications

Support your reasoning with evidence from scholarly, peer-reviewed literature from 2 to 3 scholarly sources. Your paper should be 5-7 pages in length and written in a clear, concise, and organized manner. Your paper should demonstrate ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources (i.e., APA) and display accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.