For those who don't know what business continuity is, they assume it is succession planning. Yes, and...it is one of the planks of a great business continuity plan.
Succession planning is planning the next steps for your business to continue without you, usually via a sale or retirement. It's necessary to start this planning well in advance of your plan to exit the business. And I mean years in advance. Why?
Leaders don't just grow on trees.
You have to have some kind of leadership development plan in your company so you know you are handing over the reins to someone who is capable. The star salesman might be terrible at management. The employee who puts up the big numbers may not be the right one to carry your company into the future. Like a BC plan that is treated like a living document and needs to be updated regularly, a succession plan needs to be looked at frequently.
First, you cannot guarantee the leader you are grooming is going to stay working for you. Second, your company is going to grow. The person you have in mind to lead your $1M-a-year company may not be the one who is best to lead your $50M-a-year company. The company's needs will change as it changes year to year. Another thing to note, you might not want to limit yourself to an internal candidate, so look to the possibility of external candidates as well. And a third type of candidate: the emergency fill.
Yes, "emergency". One of the main ideas of business continuity is you can't control everything that happens to your business, but you can control how you respond. Maybe you aren't yet at the sale point. Maybe you aren't at your retirement stage. Maybe, instead, your board fires you. Or you get run over by a bus. If you haven't thought of who is going to lead the business in the interim, the business may well wind up dying along with you in that tragic moment.
I mentioned a sale. "Say more," you say. If you want to sell your business, you need a business to sell. Plan all you want on when to sell it and the vacation plans you'll make with the money, but ensuring you have a valuable business is the main plank in that plan. How do you do that? With a good BC plan, of course! The extra bonus of having done BC planning is when it is time for the sale, not only will your business valuation be higher because it is more resilient than the next like business, but it is a good way to ensure the deal will close.
There are other issues at play with succession planning like certain legalities for the type of business you have. Having planned for them in advance and working around/with those regulations and laws make winding down the business easier if that is your succession plan: to cease operations of your successful business if you are unable to continue. (This is discussed at length in my book, btw). Can't imagine that being something you want to do? Just ask me, I have plenty of examples.
It really comes down to what you want, how you want to do it, and the extra plan for when that plan all goes to shit because something terrible happens out of the blue.

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