• Search Search Please fill out this field.
  • 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.

business continuity plans meaning

Pete Rathburn is a copy editor and fact-checker with expertise in economics and personal finance and over twenty years of experience in the classroom.

business continuity plans meaning

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 IT 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 identified and 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. Accessed Sept. 5, 2021.

business continuity plans meaning

  • Terms of Service
  • Editorial Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Your Privacy Choices

What Is A Business Continuity Plan? [+ Template & Examples]

Swetha Amaresan

Published: December 30, 2022

When a business crisis occurs, the last thing you want to do is panic.

executives discussing business continuity plan

The second-to-last thing you want to do is be unprepared. Crises typically arise without warning. While you shouldn't start every day expecting the worst, you should be relatively prepared for anything to happen.

A business crisis can cost your company a lot of money and ruin your reputation if you don't have a business continuity plan in place. Customers aren't very forgiving, especially when a crisis is influenced by accidents within the company or other preventable mistakes. If you want your company to be able to maintain its business continuity in the face of a crisis, then you'll need to come up with this type of plan to uphold its essential functions.

Free Download: Crisis Management Plan & Communication Templates

In this post, we'll explain what a business continuity plan is, give examples of scenarios that would require a business continuity plan, and provide a template that you can use to create a well-rounded program for your business.

Table of Contents:

What is a business continuity plan?

  • Business Continuity Types
  • Business Continuity vs Disaster Recovery

Business Continuity Plan Template

How to write a business continuity plan.

  • Business Continuity Examples

A business continuity plan outlines directions and procedures that your company will follow when faced with a crisis. These plans include business procedures, names of assets and partners, human resource functions, and other helpful information that can help maintain your brand's relationships with relevant stakeholders. The goal of a business continuity plan is to handle anything from minor disruptions to full-blown threats.

For example, one crisis that your business may have to respond to is a severe snowstorm. Your team may be wondering, "If a snowstorm disrupted our supply chain, how would we resume business?" Planning contingencies ahead of time for situations like these can help your business stay afloat when you're faced with an unavoidable crisis.

When you think about business continuity in terms of the essential functions your business requires to operate, you can begin to mitigate and plan for specific risks within those functions.

business continuity plans meaning

Crisis Communication and Management Kit

Manage, plan for, and communicate during your corporate crises with these crisis management plan templates.

  • Free Crisis Management Plan Template
  • 12 Crisis Communication Templates
  • Post-Crisis Performance Grading Template
  • Additional Crisis Best Management Practices

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Business Continuity Planning

Business continuity planning is the process of creating a plan to address a crisis. When writing out a business continuity plan, it's important to consider the variety of crises that could potentially affect the company and prepare a resolution for each.

Business Continuity Plan

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

20 Crisis Management Quotes Every PR Team Should Live By

20 Crisis Management Quotes Every PR Team Should Live By

Social Media Crisis Management: Your Complete Guide [Free Template]

Social Media Crisis Management: Your Complete Guide [Free Template]

De-Escalation Techniques: 19 Best Ways to De-Escalate [Top Tips + Data]

De-Escalation Techniques: 19 Best Ways to De-Escalate [Top Tips + Data]

Situational Crisis Communication Theory and How It Helps a Business

Situational Crisis Communication Theory and How It Helps a Business

What Southwest’s Travel Disruption Taught Us About Customer Service

What Southwest’s Travel Disruption Taught Us About Customer Service

Showcasing Your Crisis Management Skills on Your Resume

Showcasing Your Crisis Management Skills on Your Resume

What Is Contingency Planning? [+ Examples]

What Is Contingency Planning? [+ Examples]

What Is Reputational Risk? [+ Real Life Examples]

What Is Reputational Risk? [+ Real Life Examples]

10 Crisis Communication Plan Examples (and How to Write Your Own)

10 Crisis Communication Plan Examples (and How to Write Your Own)

Top Tips for Working in a Call Center (According to Customer Service Reps)

Top Tips for Working in a Call Center (According to Customer Service Reps)

Manage, plan for, and communicate during a corporate crisis.

Service Hub provides everything you need to delight and retain customers while supporting the success of your whole front office

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to search
  • Skip to footer

What Is Business Continuity?

What is business continuity

Business continuity is an organization's ability to maintain or quickly resume acceptable levels of product or service delivery following a short-term event that disrupts normal operations. Examples of disruptions range from natural disasters to power outages.

  • Watch video (1:14)
  • Business continuity

Contact Cisco

  • Get a call from Sales

Call Sales:

  • 1-800-553-6387
  • US/CAN | 5am-5pm PT
  • Product / Technical Support
  • Training & Certification

Is business continuity the same as business resilience or disaster recovery?

Business continuity, disaster recovery, and business resilience are not the same, but they are related.

  • Business continuity is a process-driven approach to maintaining operations in the event of an unplanned disruption such as a cyber attack or natural disaster. Business continuity planning covers the entire business—processes, assets, workers, and more. It isn't focused solely on IT infrastructure and business systems.
  • Business resilience encompasses crisis management and business continuity. It requires a response to all types of risk that an organization may face. An organization that is business resilient is essentially in a constant state of "expecting the unexpected." It means continuously preparing to meet disruptions head-on, including events of extended duration that may affect more than one facility or region.
  • Disaster recovery focuses specifically on how to restore an enterprise's IT infrastructure and business systems following a disruption. It is considered an element of business continuity. A business continuity plan (BCP) might contain several disaster recovery plans, for example.

What is a business continuity strategy?

A business continuity strategy is a summary of the mitigation, crisis, and recovery plans to be implemented after a disruption to resume normal operations. "Business continuity strategy" is often used interchangeably with "business continuity plan." Both consider the broader goals, legal and regulatory requirements, personnel, and even the business's clients and partners.

What does a business continuity plan mitigate?

A relevant and well-tested BCP can help ease the negative impacts of an unexpected business disruption in many ways.

  • Financial impact: Disruptions to product supply chains and critical services to customers can directly affect sales and revenue. Downtime caused by unplanned disruptions can also result in higher costs for a business as it looks to repair operations and mitigate previously unidentified threats.
  • Reputation and brand impact: Failure to resume operations quickly and supply customers with the products or services they expect can prompt customer defections and tarnish the brand. Damage to reputation can in turn cause investors and capital sources to pull back funding, exacerbating the financial impact of a business disruption.
  • Regulatory impact: Customers and vendors are likely to complain when businesses fail to respond appropriately to disruptions, which may result in regulatory scrutiny or even censure. In highly-regulated industries, such as energy and financial services, business continuity planning is mandatory to ensure regulatory compliance.

Business continuity planning activities

A well-crafted and tested BCP can go a long way toward helping a business recover swiftly from a disruption. These are key steps a business may want to take.

Identifying critical business areas and functions

Business continuity planning begins with identifying an organization's key business areas and the critical functions within those areas. A business needs to determine and document the acceptable downtime for each area and function considered vital to operations. Then a plan to restore operations can be established, documented, and communicated.

Analyzing risks, threats, and potential impacts

Creating appropriate response scenarios requires knowing what disruptions the business could experience. An upfront analysis of risks and threats is necessary in order to prepare contingency responses to events. Organizations can also conduct a back-end analysis after an event to gather metrics and assess lessons learned. This information can drive improvements in how the business responds to disruptions.

Outlining and assigning responsibilities

A BCP details which personnel will be responsible for implementing specific aspects of the plan. It also identifies key decision-makers and a chain of command. The plan should include alternative options in case primary personnel are incapacitated or unavailable to respond to the disruption.

Defining and documenting alternatives

A business continuity plan should define and document alternative communication strategies in case telephone services or the internet are down. Enterprises should also have alternatives for mission-critical spaces such as data centers or manufacturing facilities in case buildings are damaged.

Assessing the need for critical backups

Essential equipment may be damaged or unavailable during a disruptive event. A business should consider whether it has access to backup equipment and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) during extended power outages. Business-critical data needs to be backed up regularly, and is mandatory in many regulated industries.

Testing, training, and communication

Business continuity plans need to be tested to ensure they will be effective. (Disaster recovery plans should be tested as well.) A best practice is to conduct a plan review at least quarterly with leadership and key team members who are responsible for executing the plan.

Many companies use role-playing sessions, simulations, and other types of exercises several times per year to test their BCPs. This approach helps to identify gaps, develop strategies for improvement, and determine if more resources are needed. Targeted staff training and communicating to the whole workforce the benefits of having a business continuity plan are also vital to its success.

Related products and solutions

  • Cisco Webex Contact Center
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
  • Cisco Intersight Workload Optimizer
  • AppDynamics Application Performance Management
  • ThousandEyes End User Monitoring
  • ThousandEyes Endpoint Agents

You may also like…

  • Cisco’s Business Resiliency Strategy
  • Business Continuity Blogs
  • Business Continuity Planning

business continuity plans meaning

US

Anywhere Workspace

Access Any App on Any Device Securely

App Platform

Build and Operate Cloud Native Apps

Cloud & Edge Infrastructure

Run Enterprise Apps Anywhere

  • Telco Cloud

Cloud Management

Automate and Optimize Apps and Clouds

Desktop Hypervisor

Manage apps in a local virtualization sandbox

  • Fusion for Mac
  • Workstation Player
  • Workstation Pro

Security & Networking

Connect and Secure Apps and Clouds

Run VMware on any Cloud. Any Environment. Anywhere.

On public & hybrid clouds.

alibaba

On Private & Local Clouds

emc

Anywhere Workspace Access Any App on Any Device Securely

App platform build and operate cloud native apps, cloud infrastructure run enterprise apps anywhere, cloud management automate and optimize apps and clouds, edge infrastructure enable the multi-cloud edge, networking enable connectivity for apps and clouds, security secure apps and clouds, by industry.

  • Communications Service Providers
  • Department of Defense
  • Federal Government
  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare Providers
  • State and Local Government

VMware AI Solutions

Accelerate and ensure the success of your generative AI initiatives with multi-cloud flexibility, choice, privacy and control.

For Customers

  • Find a Cloud Provider
  • Find a Partner
  • VMware Marketplace
  • Work with a Partner

For Partners

  • Become a Cloud Provider
  • Cloud Partner Navigator
  • Get Cloud Verified
  • Learning and Selling Resources
  • Partner Connect Login
  • Partner Executive Edge
  • Technology Partner Hub
  • Work with VMware

Working Together with Partners for Customer Success

A new, simplified partner program to help achieve even greater opportunities for profitability.

Tools & Training

  • VMware Customer Connect
  • VMware Trust Center
  • Learning & Certification
  • Product Downloads
  • Product Trials
  • Cloud Services Engagement Platform
  • Hands-on Labs
  • Professional Services
  • Customer Success
  • Support Offerings
  • Support Customer Welcome Center

Marketplace

  • Cloud Marketplace
  • VMware Video Library
  • VMware Explore Video Library

Blogs & Communities

  • News & Stories
  • Communities
  • Customer Stories
  • VMware Explore
  • All Events & Webcasts
  • Topics 
  • VMware Glossary 
  • Content 
  • Business Continuity Plan

What is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)?

A  Business Continuity Plan (BCP)  is a detailed strategy and set of systems for ensuring an organization’s ability to prevent or rapidly recover from a significant disruption to its operations. The plan is essentially a playbook for how any type of organization—such as a private-sector company, a government agency or a school—will continue its day-to-day business during a disaster scenario or otherwise abnormal conditions.  

Examples of such disruptions include a fire, a major earthquake or other a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a cyberattack and many other scenarios that could upend “business as usual.” When such events significantly disrupt an organization’s normal routines, it turns to its business continuity plan for instructions, processes and tools it needs to continue to operate or to quickly recover from downtime. 

business continuity plans meaning

The Virtual Floorplan: New Rules for a New Era of Work

business continuity plans meaning

Hindsight is 2020 - The Pandemic Provides a Wakeup Call

Why is a business continuity plan important.

Risks can be managed, but they can’t be eliminated. Business continuity planning is critical because without it, an organization faces downtime and other problems that could damage its financial health. In major disasters, a lack of a business continuity plan could cause irreparable financial harm that might ultimately force a company to permanently close. 

How to create a Business Continuity Plan?

There are many frameworks for creating an effective business continuity plan. Most of them cover three overlapping phases: 

  • Analysis : In this phase, you identify and evaluate the various functions of your business and its operations. Then, you determine how those different functions will be affected by a disaster. This phase usually entails prioritizing different areas or departments in terms of how important they are to your operation, so that your plan ultimately ensures the continuity of your most critical functions first. Business continuity  professionals often conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) at the outset of developing a new plan. A BIA estimates the consequences of different disaster scenarios in terms of lost revenue and other business-specific metrics.
  • Planning : Once an initial analysis is complete, the next phase entails all facets of developing an actual plan for continuing to operate in a disaster, or rapidly recovering from a disruption to normal operations. During the planning phase, organizations:  
  • Develop protocols for potential needs such as a rapid relocation or shift to  remote work . 
  • Strategize temporary staffing changes or needs. 
  • Implement  IT disaster recovery  tools to ensure continuity of critical systems. 

A key part of this phase is to name a continuity or crisis management team, comprised of executives and stakeholders who will lead the plan’s implementation if necessary. 

  • Training and Testing : Even the most robust BCP must be put through regular testing to ensure it will work if needed. This includes educating employees on their roles and responsibilities in these scenarios, as well as conducting trials of various elements of the plan. An example would include a short-term rollout of a remote work scenario to identify issues and opportunities for optimization.  

Key features of a business continuity plan

Some features of a BCP will be industry or business-specific, but there are components that are common to almost any plan: 

People : A BCP will clearly define roles and responsibilities, not just for the crisis management leadership team, but also for any units responsible for implementing different pieces of the plan in a disaster scenario. Some BCPs will also define “essential personnel”—for example, people whose job requires them to report to work even in periods of heightened risk. 

Technology : Almost all modern business continuity plans will also clearly outline the role that information technology will play in ensuring critical data, applications and services remain available or are quickly restored after an interruption. These include: 

  • Data backup and recovery tools 
  • Cloud computing infrastructure  and services 
  • Remote work platforms

Service Delivery : A BCP should also describe which services are most critical and how they will continue to be delivered to customers, employees, partners, the public and other stakeholders. 

Health & Safety : Finally, a strong business continuity program will include criteria and guidelines for ensuring the health and safety of all people involved—employees, customers, partners—as the plan is implemented and managed. 

Business Continuity Plan checklist

Many organizations create a checklist as part of their business continuity planning. This is a list of all of the key steps in the BCP. It can be used in two ways:  

  • Conception : First, it can be used as part of the initial creation of the plan. In this context, the BCP checklist would describe in detail the steps necessary to develop the plan, from analysis through testing.  
  • Implementation : Second, a BCP checklist can be used for testing and/or actually implementing the plan. In this context, the BCP or crisis management team would use the checklist to ensure that it addresses all of the plan’s tools and processes and communicates them effectively throughout the organization. 

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning

Business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning are often mentioned in similar contexts, but they are not interchangeable terms. A business continuity plan is an overarching strategy for operating in disaster scenarios or recovering from a major disruption. 

A disaster recovery (DR) plan refers more specifically to the IT processes and tools you can rely on to retain or restore access to mission-critical data, applications, and services in these scenarios. A DR plan would detail, for example, how you could restore access to a revenue-generating web application in the event of a flood in the data center that powers that service. 

How often should a Business Continuity Plan be reviewed?

Most experts recommend that business continuity plans be reviewed regularly and updated as needed. This helps ensure that the plan will still meet the organization’s needs in the face of evolving risks and threats. 

The frequency with which you review a business continuity plan depends on many factors, including the nature of the organization, its industry and its particular risks. As a general rule of thumb, such plans should be reviewed annually or at least every other year. However, there are multiple scenarios where an organization may want to consider more frequent reviews, including: 

  • Significant changes to the business or its operations 
  • Location in a region at greater risk for natural disasters or other potentially disruptive events 
  • Any organization or agency that provides essential services to the public 

Recommended for You

  • Business Continuity
  • Business Mobility
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Business Continuity Application

Related Solutions and Products

Remote work solutions.

Connect Your Distributed Workforce with Remote Work Solutions

Anywhere Workspace Solutions

Enable employees to work from anywhere with secure, frictionless experiences.

Assure Experience & Productivity

Support an agile, remote workforce with seamless and secure access.

  • What is Disaster Recovery? - Definition & Benefits
  • What is Business Continuity?
  • What is Business Continuity Application?

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

Building blocks

Introduction to Business Continuity

Start here if you're new to business continuity.

What is Business Continuity?

BCM Lifecycle

Flood. Cyber attack. Supply chain failure or losing a key employee. Disruptions to your business can happen at any moment.

Business continuity is about having a plan to deal with difficult situations, so your organization can continue to function with as little disruption as possible.

Whether it’s a business, public sector organization, or charity, you need to know how you can keep going under any circumstances.

Potential incidents to consider

  •  Supply chain failure - You don't have access to materials, goods or services
  •  Utilities outage - You don't have access to electricity, water or internet
  •  Cyber incident - You have suffered a cyber attack and your website is down

These are just some of the many incidents an organziation needs to consider and plan for.

Make a plan

A good BC plan recognises potential threats to an organization and analyses what impact they may have on day-to-day operations.

It also provides a way to mitigate these threats, putting in place a framework which allows key functions of the business to continue even if the worst happens.

Example: Do not rely on one supplier of raw materials, what if that supplier goes out of business? If you purchase raw materials from two suppliers then you are potentially halving your risk.

The BCI has designed a short, self-paced eLearning course that will help you understand the importance of business continuity and get you starting to think about the incidents that might impact your own organization and what you can do to mitigate them. This short course takes up to 30 minutes to complete.

Business Continuity Basics course

The BCI has many other free resources available to enhance your understanding of business continuity, see a few below to start ...

View free webinar to understand the basics of business continuity.

 This webinar takes you through the basic business continuity concepts and quick wins on where to start (aimed at SMEs)

View webinar

What threats do organizations face?

The BCI Horizon Scan report identifies threats organziations should be aware of. Free to download.

Download Report

Download the BCI Good Practice Guidelines Lite

The BCI Good Practice Guidelines (GPG) Lite gives your a brief introduction to the Business Continuity Management Lifecycle and the stages included. It will help you put a plan together and give you insight to what is included in the full edition of the GPG and the content of the CBCI Certification course  

https://www.thebci.org/resource/good-practice-guidelines--gpg--lite-edition-7-0.html

Business Continuity Simplified

By Andy Marker | December 17, 2018 (updated October 24, 2021)

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn

Link copied

Unexpected work interruptions can cripple a business and cause millions of dollars in expenses and lost business. Learn about the importance of business continuity planning and management from experts. 

In this article, you’ll learn the definition of a business continuity plan and the primary goal of business continuity planning . Additionally, you’ll learn the steps involved in business continuity planning and about the business continuity lifecycle .

What Is Business Continuity Management?

In business continuity management (BCM) , a company identifies potential threats to its activities and the threat impact. The company then develops plans to respond to those threats and continue activities through any crisis.

What Is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan (BCP) describes how a business will continue to run during and after a crisis event. The BCP details guidelines, procedures, and work instructions to aid continuity.

To learn more about writing a plan, see our how-to guide to writing a business continuity plan .

What Is Business Continuity Planning?

Business continuity planning (BCP) refers to the work a company does to create a plan and system to deal with risks. Thorough planning seeks to prevent problems and ensure business processes continue during and after a crisis.

Business continuity planning ensures that the company deals with disruptions quickly, and minimizes the impact on operations. Business continuity planning is also called business resumption planning and continuous service delivery assurance (CSDA) .

What Is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning?

The main goal of business continuity planning is to support key company activities during a crisis. Planning ensures a company can run with limited resources or restricted access to buildings. Continuity planning also aims to minimize revenue or reputation losses.   

A business continuity plan should outline several key things that an organization needs to do to prepare for potential disruptions to its activities, including the following:

  • Recognize potential threats to a company.
  • Assess potential impacts on the company’s daily activities.
  • Provide a way to reduce these potential problems, and establish a structure that allows key company functions to continue throughout and after the event.
  • Identify the resources the organization needs to continue operating, such as staffing, equipment, and alternative locations.

Business Continuity Planning Steps

A business continuity plan includes guidelines and procedures to guide a business through disruption. The efforts to create a plan are the same for large or small organizations. A simple plan is better than no plan. 

The basic steps for writing a business continuity plan are as follows:

  • Create a governance team.
  • Complete your business impact analysis (BIA) and risk assessment documents.
  • Document your plan. Remember to include detailed guidelines and procedures that cover key processes and facilities.
  • Test and update the plan regularly.

The Business Continuity Management Lifecycle

Business continuity management includes preparing for and handling unexpected events. BCM has a six-step lifecycle. This cycle repeats during both in regular business times and crises, as you take the right steps to keep activities always running.

The BCM lifecycle includes the following points:

  • Mitigate Risk: Proactively identify business continuity risks to your company, and plan how your company will respond.
  • Prepare: Train staff on your business continuity plan and ensure they understand what they need to do to help the business respond.
  • Respond: Ensure that your company and all employees respond appropriately to a crisis. Be prepared to adapt in the moment.
  • Resolve: Ensure that the company plans how to communicate effectively with staff and that it does so appropriately during the crisis.
  • Recover: Inform employees, customers, and other important people about the status of the crisis and your company’s response.
  • Resume: Communicate with employees and others after the crisis ends.

What Are Business Continuity Risks or Events?

Also called business continuity events, business continuity risks are the most common events that can disrupt a company’s regular operations — these can be natural and human-made crises. Defining these risks is a vital part of business continuity planning.

Such events might include the following:

  • Severe weather
  • Natural disasters (tornadoes, floods, blizzards, earthquakes, fire, etc.)
  • A physical security threat
  • A recall of a company’s product
  • Supply chain problems
  • Threats to staffing and employee safety
  • Accidents at an organization’s facilities
  • Destruction to a company’s facilities or property
  • Power disruptions
  • Server crashes
  • Failures in public and private services (communications, transportation, safety, etc.)
  • Environmental disasters, including hazardous materials spills
  • Network disruptions
  • Human error/human-made hazards
  • Stock market crashes
  • Cyber attacks and hacker activity

Any of these triggers can result in broader problems for a company, such as danger or injury to staff and others, equipment damages, brand injury, and loss of income and net worth. Business continuity management and planning address and mitigate these contingencies.

What Is a Business Continuity Strategy?

A business continuity strategy is more often called a business continuity plan. The strategy includes the processes and structure a company uses to manage an unexpected event.

Some people consider business continuity strategy to be a step in the planning process. In the strategy phase, business continuity planners describe the overall approach a company should take to prevent, manage, and recover from a crisis.

An Overview of Business Continuity Management and Planning

There are several goals, key elements, and benefits to business continuity management and planning. The primary goals of management and planning are as follows:

  • Build Company Resiliency: Doing so means that your company’s tools, buildings, and operations are resistant to — and not greatly affected by — most disruptions.
  • Create a Plan for Recovery (with Contingencies that Aid in That Recovery): If a major event does cause problems, you should have a plan for how to recover quickly. That plan will include contingencies. For example, you should plan for how key operations will resume if there is a widespread power outage.

Business continuity management and planning generally cover the following areas, with differences depending on the organization and industry:

  • Disaster Recovery: Disaster recovery involves recovering technology after a disruptive event. You can learn more about disaster recovery and download free templates in our comprehensive article .
  • Emergency Management: Emergency management focuses on avoiding and mitigating catastrophic risks to staff and communities.
  • Business Recovery: Considered part of business continuity, business recovery centers on short-term activities after a disruptive incident. The short-term is sometimes defined as less than 60 days.
  • Business Resumption: This describes the longterm phase of recovery (60 or more days after an even), wherein the company returns to near-normal conditions.
  • Crisis Management: Crisis management focuses on communicating with stakeholders during and after a crisis, and controlling damage during the event. To learn more, read our comprehensive guide to crisis management .
  • Incident Management: Incident management is an ITIL (previously known as Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework for reducing or eliminating downtime after an incident.
  • Contingency Planning: This covers outlier risks that are unlikely to occur but which could have disastrous results.

business continuity plans meaning

“A well managed business continuity management program will help protect people, assets, and business processes,” says Scott Owens, founder and managing director of BluTinuity , a business continuity firm based in New Berlin, Wisconsin. “It may not be able to prevent all incidents. But it can reduce the likelihood of incidents, decrease response time, and lower the cost and impact of an incident.”

Key Elements of Business Continuity Management

All business continuity management programs should include a number of key elements, which serve to ensure that your plan is positioned for success and that you regularly update and improve it.   

These important elements include the following:

  • Governance: This is the structure and team your business sets up to create and monitor the program.
  • Business Alignment: This section details how your company’s current business continuity management and planning processes compare to expert approaches and industry standards.
  • Continuity Strategy and Recovery Strategies: Include a detailed plan that assesses risks to your organization and how you can recover, should those risks become reality.
  • Plan Documentation: Provide details on the plan that everyone in your company can access. To get started, see our roundup of free business continuity plan templates .
  • Tactical Implementation: This section includes details on the specific ways your company plans to recover from certain types of incidents.
  • Training: In this section, detail how you will train your staff to understand the business continuity plan and their role in it.
  • Testing: Include real-world simulations of a crisis event, and test how your company and its employees respond and the effectiveness of your business continuity plans.
  • Maintenance: Make changes to the plan where necessary to increase its effectiveness.
  • Monitoring: This section details how you will continue to compare industry standards and expert advice to how your plan is working.

To learn about formal requirements for business continuity planning and management, see our comprehensive article on the ISO 22301 standard . 

The Costs of Business Continuity Management

The costs to do an appropriate job of business continuity management can be significant. However, some reports say that the cost of unforeseen downtime may be as much as $2.5 billion a year for Fortune 1000 companies.

Kurt Engemann, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Business Continuity and Risk Management at Iona College in New York, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management and author of Business Continuity and Risk Management: Essentials of Organizational Resilience . In the book, he says that costs for business continuity preparation do not only include the groundwork to assess a company’s risks and plans to manage those risks. Rather, they also cover the needed backup facilities and equipment and company assets for emergency response. In addition, costs must cover resources for training employees and testing the plan.

Some experts have estimated that business continuity management and planning within only the crucial information technology aspects of companies can cost two to four percent of the information technology budget. But the costs are necessary, and worth it in the long run, according to business continuity experts.

“There is an initial outlay of a modest amount of money that will lessen the financial impact of a possible future crisis,” Engemann writes in his book. “Similar to an insurance policy, the financial benefit of BCM must be viewed from a long-term prospective.”

When an organization’s top executives complain about the costs, Owens says, “Ask them what it would cost their organization for an hour of downtime. Or eight hours. Or 24 hours. Chances are the cost — financial, operational, and to brand and reputation — of having key business functions unavailable for an extended period are significant. They will most likely find business continuity management to be worth the investment.” 

Benefits of Business Continuity Management

Like Engemann, Owens points out that there are significant benefits to the investment organizations make in business continuity management, including the following:

  • Mission Critical Processes: If you understand your key processes, you can plan to protect them and prioritize their recovery.
  • Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Laws or regulations require companies in some industries to implement a formal business continuity management system.
  • Satisfying Demands from Other Organizations: Some groups and companies may require that your company sets up BCM before they do business with you.
  • Insurance Payments: To get the maximum payments from an insurance policy after an event, a company must have suitable business continuity management policies in place.
  • Reputation Management: Your business’s brand will be greatly helped or hurt, depending on how an unforeseen event affects its operations.
  • Competitive Advantage: A strong business continuity plan can offer your company the advantage over peers who are not as well prepared.
  • Seamless Recovery: Cloud-based technologies make data backup, remote work, and business recovery affordable and accessible. Groups and businesses of all sizes can benefit from such tools. See our article on cloud computing for business continuity to learn more.
  • Time Savings: Planning prevents teams from scrambling at the last minute to cobble together a recovery effort. Strong planning helps you get back online — and back on track — faster.

Michael Herrera, CEO of MHA Consulting , a business continuity and disaster recovery firm, cites two other significant benefits: 

  • Keeping Customers and Avoiding Major Financial Losses: Getting operations back to normal quickly after an event means your company loses less money.

business continuity plans meaning

“Your customers aren’t as patient as you think they are,” Herrera explains. “They expect you to have a business continuity system and they expect you to be up and running. Their patience does run out.”

  • Improving Day-to-Day Operations: Herrera says his firm’s clients often discover how business continuity planning gives them insights into the day-to-day operations of their company. “It really can help you with process improvement and getting a good understanding of what your business does every day.”

Additionally, strong business continuity planning will enable you to do the following:

  • Officially declare a disaster and alert senior management.
  • Assist in the development of an official public statement regarding a disaster and its effects on a business.
  • Monitor your business’s progress and present the recovery status.
  • Provide ongoing support and guidance to teams with pre-planned operations.
  • Review critical processing, schedules, and backlogs to keep everyone up to date on status.
  • Ensure businesses have both the resources and the information to deal with an unforeseen emergency.
  • Reduce the risk that an emergency might pose to employees, clients, and vendors, etc.
  • Provide a response for both man-made and environmental disasters.
  • Improve overall business communication and response plans.
  • Summarize both the operational and the financial impacts resulting from the loss of critical business functions.
  • Allow businesses to plan for a loss of function that has potentially larger, more severe consequences.

See our article on the importance and benefits of business continuity planning to read more expert examples of how business continuity can bolster your company. 

Key Business Continuity Management and Planning Considerations

Companies don’t have to face business continuity planning alone. There are a variety of tools and services that can help, including the following:

Consultant Services

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of consultants and companies that can provide help with developing your business continuity plan. Below are a few things to think about in choosing one:

  • How experienced are they? How long have they been around?
  • What’s their reputation as a company? What do their clients say about them?
  • Are they focused on a specific industry or area of business continuity, or do they have experience with a range of industries and a broad spectrum of business continuity?
  • How do they think about business continuity (as a somewhat separate practice or something that needs to be ingrained within your organization)?
  • How aligned is their advice with standards in your industry?

Business Continuity Software

There are also hundreds of pieces of business continuity software on the market. Here are some things to consider:

  • Are you looking for software that will automate the development of plan components, or software that offers more in-depth help during the planning phase?
  • What is the history of the software and the company behind it? How long has this particular software been on the market and what is the history and the reputation of the company behind it?
  • Is the software being continually updated and improved?

Below are some specifics to consider as you test drive the software:

  • Does it have an easy-to-use interface?
  • Does it cover all aspects and components of business continuity, including business impact analysis and risk assessment ?
  • Does it include sufficient storage for your company’s supporting documents?
  • Does it provide secure portable access via mobile or other technologies, if a crisis interrupts your information technology systems?
  • Does it provide strong data analytics?
  • Is it secure and private?

Primary Things Your Organization’s Business Continuity Management System Should Accomplish

While your business continuity management system will have various elements and details, there are some primary things it should do for your organization. They correspond to the key elements listed earlier in this article. 

For example, a BCM system should help do the following: 

  • Understand your company’s needs for business continuity and disaster preparedness. A BCM system should be able to assist company leaders in understanding the need for a business continuity management policy.
  • Understand which processes should be recovered and in what order.
  • Establish business continuity metrics to gauge success.
  • Plan for communicating with customers, staff, and other stakeholders.
  • Determine what tools, technology, and staffing are required to restore activities and support customers.
  • Establish remote-work support or relocation plans for staff and activities.
  • Implement ways to continually assess and manage continuity risks.
  • Monitor and review how its business continuity management system is working.
  • Continually improve the system.
  • Respond effectively in a real-world crisis, and allow the business’s critical operations to continue and all operations to resume quickly.

Although nobody wants to think about disasters or the effort needed to prepare to meet and mitigate crises, the alternative is the potential loss of reputation, income, or the entire business. In sum, planning translates to determining your key processes, equipment, and tools, and applying basic recovery strategies. 

The Importance of Senior Organizational Leaders Strongly Supporting Your Business Continuity Management and Planning

Your senior leaders must strongly support your company’s business continuity management plan for it to succeed. Such leadership is key as storms, floods, pandemics, and data breaches increase in force and frequency.

business continuity plans meaning

“Make sure senior management is committed to the planning, development, execution, and implementation of a business continuity/disaster recovery program,” says Paul Kirvan , a business continuity consultant and a fellow of the Business Continuity Institute with 25 years of experience in business continuity work. “Otherwise, it simply won’t happen. Such programs work best if they have top-down support and funding, as opposed to being developed from the ground up.”

Business Continuity Plan Test Types

Testing verifies the effectiveness of your plan and provides training for participants. To ensure better communication, include suppliers, vendors, and other stakeholders in exercises. If appropriate, also consider including local emergency preparedness officials.  

There are four types of testing, and each requires increasing levels of planning, resources, and focus. You should try to run each type of drill regularly.

  • Plan Review: Plan reviews are often the first test applied to a new plan. In this test, top management and some key BCP personnel review the relevance and completeness of a plan. Such a review can verify risk and BIA results, and help you check for gaps and inconsistencies among continuity documents.
  • Tabletop or Structured Walkthrough: A tabletop test requires more preparation and time. It provides a role-playing exercise for recovery teams.
  • Simulation or Walkthrough Drill: In a walkthrough drill, your continuity team physically completes the type of tasks they'd find in a crisis. They may practice evacuating a building during a fire, restoring a backup, or switching to another communication frequency.
  • Functional or Live Scenario: Functional tests include a complete physical drill of continuity plans. Live tests may focus on one aspect of the plan or include the complete plan. They may include one part of the company or all team members.

Be sure to document what happened in the test so everyone involved in the exercise — and especially those who created the plan — can understand what did and didn’t go well, and can revise as necessary.

Business Continuity Management Policy Statement

A business continuity policy statement is a written document that outlines an organization’s business continuity management program. The policy statement should be communicated to all employees and should be signed and endorsed by the organization’s senior management.

See real-world examples of a business continuity policy statement .

Cultivating Awareness of Business Continuity Plans

The best business continuity system is useless if no one knows about it. Find ways to promote your plans in daily company activities, and discuss business continuity regularly in company and team meetings. Also, be sure to include the business continuity manager in cross-functional planning meetings so they can represent the business continuity perspective. Above all, exercise your plan, test your plan, and then test again.

What Is the Importance of a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan is vital to ensure that your company mitigates downtime during a crisis. Resuming activities quickly after an event also helps ensure your company’s financial health.

How to Write a Business Continuity Plan

It is crucial that your company set up a group of people to help create your business continuity plan. The group should include senior leadership, experts, and staff. A simple, practical plan is the best plan. At a minimum, include continuity team roles and duties, and team member contact information. You should also add guidelines and checklists for dealing with unforeseen events. 

Daily business functions rely on many resources — human, utilities, machines, and even paper, pens, and pencils. Business recovery after a disruptive event is no different. See our in-depth article on writing a business continuity plan for a complete list of resource types you may want to include in a plan.

You can ask certain questions as you form your strategy, and a business continuity plan usually includes common resources and elements. See our article on how to write a business continuity plan to learn more.

Business Continuity Plan Template

business continuity plans meaning

This template can help you document and track business operations in the event of a disruption/disaster to maintain critical processes. The plan includes space to record business function recovery priorities, recovery plans, and alternate site locations. Plan efficiently for disruption and minimize downtime, so your business maintains optimal efficiency.

Download Business Continuity Plan Template

Word | PowerPoint | PDF

You’ll find other most useful free, downloadable business continuity plan (BCP) templates, in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats in this article . 

What Is a Business Impact Analysis and Why Is It an Important Part of a Business Continuity Plan?

A business impact analysis (BIA) is one of the most important parts of business continuity planning. The analysis considers how an unforeseen disruption could affect a company. BIA results also suggest how a business can recover from a crisis.

The business impact analysis will include details on the following:

  • Recovery time objectives that outline the organization’s goals relating to how quickly various services and processes will resume after an event
  • Financial impact of an incident
  • Impact on customers
  • Other possible impacts of an incident
  • How the organization will prioritize recovery steps
  • How the organization will prioritize critical services or products
  • Identification of potential revenue loss
  • Identification of additional expenses the organization will incur because of the event
  • Identification of insurance an organization has or needs to have
  • Identification of an organization’s dependencies on other agencies, companies, and providers

See our business impact analysis toolkit to find guidelines and templates to get started.

Risk Mitigation for Business Continuity

Risk assessment is one of the first steps in preparing your business continuity plan. 

Risk management includes identifying and ranking risks, and risk control includes identifying policies and procedures to avoid and contain risks. 

To learn more about risk management , read our comprehensive guide.

The Importance of Periodically Testing an Organization’s Business Continuity Plan

Even the best business continuity plans are useless if you do not continually test them in real-world mockups. Testing helps you continuously improve procedures, and also keeps plans synched with current business context.

Robert Sollars, a security trainer and consultant from Mesa, Arizona, says, “You must exercise your plan and train your employees in it. This can be costly and unwieldy at times, but it is an absolute must. I liken this to buying a Lamborghini and letting it sit in the garage, never starting it up, never driving it, never doing anything but admiring it. Your plan must be taken out and test driven at least two to three times per year. If you don’t test it, then when the real thing pops you will realize what the books, consultants, and experts have told you is useless for your organization. Testing it allows you to figure out the bugs and tweak the necessary items to make it more efficient and effective.”

Owens adds, “If you haven’t tested your plans, you aren’t ready for a disaster.”

You can do some testing through simpler table top exercises — for example, by talking through hypothetical incidents with your team. But Owens and other business continuity experts say organizations should also periodically do exercises that more closely mimic a real-world event.

“Organizations need to move … to progressively more complex scenarios, involving cross-functional teams and interdependent systems and processes,” he writes in a blog post about business continuity. “This is the only way that a company can get outside its comfort zone to truly understand if what they have designed will really work. My preference is to involve role-playing, actors, and include participation from vendors, business partners, and local law enforcement when appropriate. This will almost always result in lessons learned and opportunities to improve the plan, which is another great outcome.”

The most important result from testing your plan is an understanding of where theoretical solutions won’t work in real events. This understanding will then allow your organization to amend the plan to be more effective.

What Is a Business Continuity Plan Governance Committee?

Many companies set up a business continuity plan governance committee, which consists of staff members and senior leaders (their continuity efforts is vital). Governance tasks include writing the business continuity plan and supervising ongoing plan maintenance.  

The committee is often responsible for the following duties:

  • Approving the governance structure of the committee
  • Clarifying the roles of committee members and others working on the plan
  • Overseeing the creation of working groups to develop and implement the plan
  • Providing overall direction and communicate important information to employees
  • Approving the continuity plan and essential specifics within it
  • Setting priorities within the plan

The committee often includes the following members:

  • A senior leader from the business, often the sponsor
  • A business continuity manager and assistant manager
  • The company employee, or outside consultant, who will serve as overall coordinator of the business continuity plan
  • The company’s security officer
  • The company’s chief information officer, or information technology leader
  • Representatives from the company’s business department, to help with the business impact analysis
  • An administrative representative

How to Cultivate Resilience in Your Organization

A resilient organization has the tools and abilities to survive a disruptive event, and also regularly looks for new threats and adapts to changes in the organizational and industry landscape. Resilience experts recognize two types of resilience: reactive resilience uses a company’s existing processes to meet and overcome a crisis; proactive resilience anticipates disruptions and considers methods to prevent problems.  

Real World Example: Lessons Learned About Business Continuity from the Terrorist Attacks of Sept. 11, 2001

Organizational leaders and business continuity experts learned a lot from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Worst of all, the attacks killed thousands of people. But they also severely disrupted communications, financial transactions, and some commerce in New York City and throughout the world.

The following are among the lessons learned:

  • Business continuity plans must be tested frequently, and updated where needed.
  • The plans must assume a wide range of threats.
  • The plans must take into account how much companies, agencies, and other entities depend on each other.
  • Key people from any organization must be available and reachable when an incident happens.
  • The ability to communicate, especially through landline phones, cell phones, and the internet, is vital.
  • Sites that organizations use for backup of their digital information should be located at a distance from their primary information technology site.
  • Employee support and counseling may be important during and after a crisis.
  • An organization should store copies of its business continuity plan at a location apart from its primary location.
  • Security perimeters around the scene of an incident may be large, which may affect employees’ access to organization facilities for long periods.

Legislation Governing Some Business Continuity Management and Planning

The United Kingdom did approved the Civil Contingencies Act in 2004, which requires businesses to have business continuity plans in place.

Some industries do have regulatory bodies that may impose business continuity requirements within those industries. For instance, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is a private self-regulatory organization overseeing the U.S. financial securities industry. FINRA established FINRA Rule 4370. This rule requires securities firms to create and maintain written business continuity plans. Utility bodies, such as North American Electric Reliability Corporation ( NERC ) and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ( FERC ), also require continuity plans.

Guidelines, Standards, and Resources Providing Guidance on Business Continuity Management and Planning

Organizational leaders can use a number of standards set by industry and other groups to guide their business continuity planning and management programs. Below are some commonly used standards:

  • ISO 22301 : Developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a standard-setting body, this group of standards sets out appropriate business continuity management practices. Learn more about how this standard can help businesses of all sizes in our guide to ISO 22301 . 
  • NFPA 1600 : Developed by the National Fire Protection Association, the standard is one of the most widely recognized in the U.S. on emergency preparedness and business continuity.
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology SP 800-34 : Sets contingency planning standards for federal information systems in the U.S.
  • SPC-2009 — Organizational Resilience : Security, Preparedness and Continuity Management Systems provides critical business and infrastructure security standards developed by the American Society for Industrial Security.
  • ISO 27000 : Standards for security in information technology systems, which include standards for business continuity in information technology. Learn more about ISO 27000 and find free checklists and templates . 
  • DRI International : Professional Practices for Business Continuity Management
  • Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): Continuity Guidance Circular: Continuity Guidance for Non-Federal Entities: An 86-page formal document, the circular presents FEMA’s perspective on how businesses can prepare for disasters.
  • Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety: Open for Business Continuity Toolkit: This site offers a video, FAQ, and downloadable continuity planning tools.

What Is the Business Continuity Institute?

The Business Continuity Institute (BCI), based in the United Kingdom, is a non-profit professional organization providing education, certification, and leadership on business continuity management. The Institute has more than 8,000 members in more than 100 countries.

Improve Business Continuity Planning with Real-Time Work Management in Smartsheet

Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

Discover why over 90% of Fortune 100 companies trust Smartsheet to get work done.

5 Step Guide to Business Continuity Planning (BCP) in 2021

A business continuity plan provides a concrete plan to maintain business cohesion in challenging circumstances. Click here for the key steps that can help you formulate a formidable BCP.

A business continuity plan (BCP) is defined as a protocol of preventing and recovering from potentially large threats to the company’s business continuity. This article explains what a business continuity plan is today, its key benefits, and a step-by-step guide to creating a formidable plan.

Table of Contents

What is a business continuity plan (bcp), key benefits of having a business continuity plan, step-by-step guide to building a formidable business continuity plan (bcp) in 2021.

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a protocol of preventing and recovering from potentially large threats to the company’s business continuity. Such a plan often aims to address the need for updated business norms and operational standards in unpredictable circumstances such as natural disasters, data breach/ exposures, large scale system failures etc. The goal of such a plan is to ensure continuity of business with no or little damage to regular working environments, including job security for its employees.

It covers everything from business processes, human resources details, and more. Essentially a BCP provides a concrete plan to the organization to maintain business continuity even in challenging circumstances. 

Below are key reasons why businesses need to have a BCP today:

  • BCP’s relevance has gone up considerably after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and was also a major testing time for organizations that did have such a plan in place. The organizations which had a business continuity plan in place were better able to cope during these unprecedented circumstances better than those who did not have any such plans.
  • The recorded number of natural disasters has increased from 375 in 2016 to 409 in 2019 Opens a new window . Globally, the loss because of natural disasters was $232 billion in 2019, according to a study by Aon Opens a new window .
  • The number of cyberattacks has also increased in all geographies and all business verticals. MonsterCloud reported that cyberattacks have skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. All this means that the organizations have to be better prepared to fight disasters. The importance of BCP can hardly be exaggerated in this context. Preparing a BCP is imperative for any enterprise, big or small, today. 

The end goal of a BCP is to ensure that the essential services continue to run in the event of an incident. For instance, if there is an earthquake where your customer service representatives operate from, your BCP will be able to tell you who will handle customer calls until the original office is restored.

Also Read: What Is Disaster Recovery? Definition, Cloud and On-premise, Benefits and Best Practices

Difference between a business continuity plan (BCP) and disaster recovery plan (DCP)

A BCP is often confused with a disaster recovery (DR) plan. While a DR plan is primarily focused on restoring the IT systems and infrastructure, a BCP is much more than that. It covers all areas and departments of the organization, including HR, marketing and sales, support functions. 

The underlying thought behind BCP is that IT systems can hardly work in silos. Other departments also need to be restored to cater to the client or for meeting the business demands. 

“Many people think a disaster recovery plan (DRP) is the same as a business continuity plan, but a DRP is only a small, yet essential, a portion of a full BCP. A DRP focuses solely on restoring an organization’s IT infrastructure while minimizing data loss. On the other hand, a BCP is a comprehensive guide on how to continue the mission and business-critical operations during a time of an unplanned disruption (natural disasters, pandemics, or malware),” says Caleb Pipkin, a security expert at Logically . 

Whether a business is small, big, or medium-sized, it needs a ‘plan B’ to recover quickly in the event of a natural disaster or a crisis and can survive the disruption. BCP helps you dust yourself and get back to business quickly and easily. It means that the enterprise will be better placed to address their customers’ needs even in the wake of a disaster. 

On the other hand, the lack of a plan means that your organization will take longer to recover from an event or incident. It could also lead to loss of business or clients. Let’s look at some key benefits of BCP.

1. It is a roadmap to act in a disaster

A well-defined business continuity plan is like a roadmap during a disruption. It allows the firms to react swiftly and effectively and maintain business continuity. In turn, this leads to a faster and complete recovery of the enterprise in the shortest possible timeframe. It brings down the business downtime and outlines the steps to be taken before, during, and after a crisis and thus helps maintain its financial viability. 

2. Offers a competitive edge

Fast reaction and business continuity during a disruption allow organizations to gain a competitive edge over its business rivals. It can translate into a significant competitive advantage in the long run. Further, your clients will be more confident in your ability to perform in adverse circumstances allowing you to build a long and sustainable relationship with your business partners.

Developing competence to act and handle any unfavorable event effectively has a positive effect on the company’s reputation and market value. It goes a long way in enhancing customer confidence. 

Also Read: Top 8 Disaster Recovery Software Companies in 2021

3. Cuts down losses

Disasters have a considerable impact on all types of business, whether big or small. Business disruption can lead to financial, legal, and reputational losses. Failure to plan could be disastrous for businesses. You may lose your customers while trying to get your business on track. In the worst circumstances, you may not be able to recover at all. A well-defined business continuity strategy minimizes the damage to an organization and allows you to bring down these losses as much as possible. 

4. Enables employment continuity and protects livelihoods

One of the most significant consequences of a disaster is the loss of employment. The loss of livelihood can be curtailed to an extent if the business continues to function in the event of a disaster. It leads to greater confidence in the workforce that their jobs might not be at risk, and the management is taking steps to protect their jobs. It helps build confidence in senior management’s ability to respond to the business disruption in a planned manner. 

5. Can be life-saving

A regularly tested and updated BCP can potentially help save the lives of the employees and the customers during a disaster. For instance, if the BCP plan for fire is regularly tested, the speed with which the workforce acts can help save lives. 

6. Preserves brand value and develops resilience

Possibly the biggest asset of an organization is its brand. Being able to perform in uncertain times helps build goodwill and maintain its brand value and may even help mitigate financial and reputational loss during a disaster. 

BCP curtails the damage to the company’s brand and finances because of a disaster event. This helps bring down the cost of any incident and thus help the company be more resilient. 

Also Read: 10 Best Practices for Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP)

7. Enables adherence to compliance requirements

Having a BCP allows organizations to have additional benefits of complying with regulatory requirements. It is a legal requirement in several countries.

8. Helps in supply chain security

A precise BCP goes a long way in protecting the supply chain from damage. It ensures continuity in delivering products and services by being able to perform critical activities.

9. Enhances operational efficiency

One of BCP’s lesser-known benefits is that it helps identify areas of operational efficiency in the organization. Developing BCP calls for an in-depth evaluation of the company’s processes. This can potentially reveal the areas of improvement. Essentially, it gathers information that can benefit in enhancing the effectiveness of the processes and operations. 

Also Read: 7 Ways to Build an Effective Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan  

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the spotlight on preparing for a disaster like never before. We make the job easier for you by listing out the key steps in building a formidable business continuity plan: 

How to Build a Business Continuity Plan

How to Build a Business Continuity Plan

Step 1: Risk assessment 

This phase involves asking crucial questions to evaluate the risks faced by the company. What are the likely business threats and disruptions which are most likely to occur? What is the most profitable activity of your organization? It is vital to prioritize key risks and operations, which will help mitigate the damage in the event of a disaster. 

Step 2: Business impact analysis

The second step involves a thorough and in-depth assessment of your business processes to determine the vulnerable areas and the potential losses if those processes are disrupted. This is also known as Business Impact Analysis . 

Essentially, Business impact analysis (BIA) is a process that helps the organization define the impact if critical business operations are interrupted because of a disaster, accident, or emergency. It helps in identifying the most crucial elements of the business processes. For instance, maintaining a supply chain might be more critical during a crisis than public relations.

While there is no formal standard for a BIA, it typically involves the following steps: 

  • Collating information: As a first step, a questionnaire is prepared to find out critical business processes and resources that will help in the proper assessment of the impact of a disruptive event. One-on-one sessions with key management members may be conducted further to gain insights into the organization’s processes and workings.
  • Analysis: This is followed by analyzing the collected information. A manual or computer-assisted analysis is conducted. The analysis is based on an interruption in which crucial activities or resources are not available. Typically it works on the assumption of the worst-case scenario, even when the chances of a risk likelihood are low. This approach is followed to zero in on the systems that, when disrupted or interrupted, threaten the organization’s very survival. This way, these processes are prioritized in the business continuity plan. 

The analysis phase helps identify the minimum staff and resources required for running the organization in the event of a crisis. This also allows the organizations to assess the impact on the revenue if the business is unable to run for a day, a week, or more. There might be contractual penalties, regulatory fines, and workforce-related expenditure which need to be taken into account while finding out the impact on the business. Further, there might be specific vulnerabilities of the firm, and they need to be considered in the BIA. 

  • Preparing a report: The next step is preparing a BIA report, which is assessed by the senior management. The report is a thorough analysis of the gathered information along with findings. It also gives recommendations on the procedure that should be followed in the event of a business disruption. The BIA report also shares the impact on the revenue, supply chain, and customer delivery to the business in a specific time frame. 

The business impact analysis report may also include a checklist of all the resources, such as the names of key personnel, data backup , contact information, emergency responders, and more.

  • Presenting the report: Usually, this report goes through several amendments before being cleared by the senior management. The involvement of senior management is crucial to the success of the business continuity plan. It sends out a strong signal in the organization that it is a serious initiative. 

Also Read: Will Extreme Weather Events Affect Your Business? Lessons From the Texas Winter Storm

Step 3: BCP Testing

Several testing methods are available to test the effectiveness of the BCP. Here are a few common ones: 

  • TableTop test: As the name suggests, the identified executives go through the plan in detail to evaluate whether it will work on not. Different disaster types and the response to them are discussed at length. This type of testing is designed to make all the key personnel aware of their role in the event of a disaster. The response procedure is reviewed, and responsibilities are outlined, so everybody knows their roles.
  • Walk through: In this type of testing, the team members go through their part in the plan with a specific disaster in mind. Drills or a simulated response and disaster role-playing are part of this. This is a more thorough form of testing and likely to reveal the shortcoming in the plan. Any vulnerabilities discovered should be used to update the BCP accordingly.
  • Disaster simulation testing: In this type of testing, an environment that simulates an actual disaster is created. This is the closest to the actual event and gives the best case scenario about the plan’s workability. It will help the team find gaps that might be overlooked in the other types of tests. Document the results of your testing so you can compare the improvement from the previous tests. It will help you in strengthening your business continuity plan. 

Frequency of testing – Typically, organizations test BCP at least twice a year. At the same time, it depends on the size of your organization and the business vertical you operate in.

Step 4: Maintenance

A business continuity plan should not be treated as a one-time exercise. It needs to be maintained , so the organization’s structural and people changes are updated regularly. The key personnel might move on from the firm, and this would need to be updated in the Business Impact Analysis and BCP. The process for regular updating of the documentation should be followed to ensure that the organization is not caught on the wrong foot in case of a business disruption. 

Also Read: Offsite Data Replication: A Great Way To Meet Recovery Time Objectives

Step 5: Communication

Sometimes executives tend to ignore communication while preparing a BCP. It is a crucial aspect, and your BCP should clearly define who will maintain the communication channels with the employees, regulators, business partners, and partners during the crisis. The contact information of the key people should be readily accessible for the BCP to work without any trouble.

In the end, the organizations should accept that despite preparing a formidable business continuity plan, several factors beyond your control may still affect its success or failure. The key executives might not be available in the event of a crisis; both the primary and the alternate data recovery sites might have been affected by the event; the communications network might be damaged, and so on. Such factors are common during a natural disaster and may lead to the limited success of the business continuity plan. 

The success of a business depends on it acting swiftly and efficiently when confronted with an unanticipated crisis. Any failure to do so results in a financial and reputational loss, which takes up a long time to recover. It can be avoided if the organization quickly gathers itself during a disaster. A business continuity plan is then of paramount importance for a business of any size. At the same time, it is crucial to ensure that the BCP is not a one-time exercise. It needs to be continuously evaluated, tested, amended, and maintained so it doesn’t let you down when you need it the most. 

Did you enjoy reading this article? Comment below or let us know on  LinkedIn Opens a new window ,  Twitter Opens a new window , or  Facebook Opens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!

Share This Article:

Take me to Community

Recommended Reads

No More Business As Usual: Vulnerability Management Focused On Managing Risk

No More Business As Usual: Vulnerability Management Focused On Managing Risk

How Leaders Can Protect Supply Chains Against Cyber Risks

How Leaders Can Protect Supply Chains Against Cyber Risks

The Vulnerabilities of Traditional Patch Management

The Vulnerabilities of Traditional Patch Management

Fry the Phish this Valentine’s Day: How to Thwart Online Scammers Using AI

Fry the Phish this Valentine’s Day: How to Thwart Online Scammers Using AI

Looking for a Bug Bounty Program: 13 Signs of a Successful One

Looking for a Bug Bounty Program: 13 Signs of a Successful One

Hackers Set Their Sights on the C-Suite

Hackers Set Their Sights on the C-Suite

+1 512-347-9300

Business Continuity Planning: Definition, Examples and How to Write One

pauline ashenden

The COVID-19 crisis caught organizations around the world by surprise and left companies scrambling to figure out how to keep their operations running while simultaneously supporting an entirely remote workforce and new business processes. A recent Business Continuity Survey by industry research firm Gartner showed that only 12% of organizations felt highly prepared for the impact of coronavirus. “This lack of confidence shows that many organizations approach risk management in an outdated and ineffective manner,” said Matt Shinkman, vice president in the Gartner Risk and Audit practice. “The best-prepared organizations will manage the disruption caused by the coronavirus far better than their less-prepared peers.”

Catastrophic events like the coronavirus pandemic are impossible to predict, so your organization must be prepared with a business continuity plan in advance. Not only does a business continuity plan help mitigate risks in a catastrophic event, but it also protects your employees and assets, ensuring that your business recovers as quickly as possible. Being ill-prepared for a crisis can be extremely costly to a company. Gartner estimates, on average, businesses lose $5,600 every minute during downtime , which equates to a range of $140,000–$540,000 per hour. In this blog, we explain the rationale for having a current and tested business continuity plan and provide tips for creating a business continuity program that protects your company in the event of a crisis.

What Is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a document that outlines procedures for maintaining operations, or quickly resuming operations, during an unplanned disruption, disaster or crisis. A BCP typically identifies key emergency responders and contains detailed instructions an organization must follow in the event of significant disruption.

Why You Need a Plan: 5 Types of Crises Your Business Could Face

A crisis can be any unforeseen occurrence that causes an unstable and dangerous situation for a company. Sooner or later, no matter the size or industry, all organizations will encounter some sort of crisis. Below are the five most common types of crises a business could face.

1. Financial crisis

A financial crisis occurs when a business loses value in its assets and the company owes significantly more money than it can reasonably pay. Typically, this occurs when there is a sudden shift in the market or a dramatic drop in demand for the company’s product or service. For example, a competitor that comes out with a similar but superior product with a cheaper base cost could cause the demand for your product to significantly drop, resulting in a considerable financial loss for your company. Financial crises directly result in a loss of value for a company and can undermine company confidence among employees, investors and customers.

2. System outages or downtime

Information technology (IT), as well as essential business applications and systems, are critical to day-to-day operations and keeping businesses running smoothly. Technological failures, cyberattacks, outages or security breaches can greatly hinder or completely shut down a company’s operations, resulting in enormous losses for the organization. Frequent news stories about data breaches illustrate how this type of risk is a growing concern for enterprise companies. IT outages and breaches can also result in a major hit to the product’s or service’s reputation.

3. Unplanned loss of key personnel

A personnel crisis occurs when an employee or a key individual who’s associated with an organization abruptly leaves the company due to health, misconduct or other unforeseen circumstances. The unplanned loss of key employees, particularly those in leadership roles, often has a lasting and negative impact on business performance. Additionally, if the employee’s departure is due to misconduct, the company may experience backlash and reputational damage if the offense is perceived as a reflection of the company’s culture. Social media has amplified the speed and scope of negative publicity from personnel misconduct.

4. Organizational misdeeds

An organizational misdeed occurs when a company’s management willingly and knowingly behaves in a manner that results in negative consequences for its shareholders, employees or customers. This type of crisis may include a company withholding vital information, exploiting employees, adopting misleading policies, abusing managerial powers or misrepresenting the company’s products or services. An automobile manufacturer that sells their latest model car with faulty brakes is an example of a company committing an organizational misdeed. Whether this misdeed was unintentional or planned, public knowledge of the misdeed will almost certainly result in reputational or financial damage for the company.

5. Natural disasters

A natural disaster is any cataclysmic phenomenon that negatively impacts a company, such as a volcano, an earthquake, flooding, a hurricane, a tornado, or an outbreak of a virus. Damages caused by these calamities are typically large in scale and may affect an entire area or industry or even the global economy. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is an example of a natural disaster that negatively affected economies, employees, and organizations around the world.

How to Write a Business Continuity Plan in 5 Steps

Creating a business continuity plan helps protect your assets and personnel and gives you the best chance of successfully navigating an unanticipated crisis. While no one is able to predict when and how devastating events will negatively impact their business, crisis management, is important as it helps you prepare for them in advance.

To begin brainstorming and drafting your business continuity plan, form a team composed of staff with in-depth knowledge of your business functions and processes. It’s especially important to include cross-functional representatives spanning IT, Human Resources and finance to determine what strategies and plans are viable.

For those who haven’t yet created a business continuity plan, you can follow the step-by-step instructions below. You may also want to use a business continuity plan template to help guide you in the drafting process.

Step 1: Conduct a business impact analysis

The first step in developing an organization-wide business continuity plan is conducting a business impact analysis  and risk assessment exercise. The initial review will identify threats to your organization and determine how each crisis will impact your business. Try to come up with an exhaustive list that includes obvious risks — like physical damage to your building due to extreme weather or a sudden shift in the market — as well as obscure threats, like an outbreak of a contagious virus. When determining operational time lost or delays due to a disaster or crisis, it’s important to account for the best- and worst-case scenarios. Once completed, you will want to quantify the financial impact each event could potentially have on your business so you can plan accordingly.

Step 2: Discuss recovery options

Your team should now discuss strategies for recovering from a crisis and the best way to restore business operations for each scenario. Include the required resources needed to execute an emergency response, each recovery option and how those resources should function. For damage to your physical buildings or to reduce the spread of a virus, implement a tech stack  and IT strategy that can support a remote workforce and keep your operations running outside the office.

Additionally, many third-party companies support business continuity and information technology recovery strategies for critical business functions. For IT outages and breaches, you may consider contracting a vendor specializing in data loss prevention services in advance. Depending upon the size of your organization and available resources, there may be many different recovery options that can be explored for each event.

Step 3: Refine your continuity plan

Now it’s time to map each crisis scenario with your recovery plans to narrow down the list to the best options. Decide which strategies will help your business recover as quickly as possible while keeping your employees and assets safe. While you’ll want to have plans for best- and worst-case scenarios, it’s essential to simplify the plans with easy-to-understand instructions. Remember, emergency responders and employees may need to implement these plans with just a moment’s notice when disaster strikes.

Step 4: Train your team

A great plan is only as good as its execution. That’s why it’s crucial that you educate and train your staff on how to respond to crises. First, identify key personnel who will be the first to assist and follow the business continuity plan in the event of an emergency. These employees should know their specific responsibilities and roles in the plan. While your designated emergency responders will need the most training, you should get your whole staff involved with the BCP, even if they are not directly affected. Embed continuity training into your company culture so all employees know how to respond to various scenarios and whom they should contact in an emergency.

Discussing the need for a business continuity culture, MHA Consulting’s Richard Long writes , “When an organization has a continuity culture, its employees constantly ask themselves the question: How do we ensure that this process, application or function will remain available (even in a degraded state) in case of a disaster?”

Step 5: Map out the transitional phase

Finally, map out the transitional phase to ease back into normal operations and work postcrisis. Determine what requirements need to be met before business operations can resume. If your physical building was damaged, what steps need to be completed before employees can safely return to the office? If a key individual who’s associated with your organization abruptly leaves due to misconduct, how will you communicate this with your employees and help them transition back into a normal workflow? The effects of some events may be extremely personal for your staff and extend far beyond the initial shock. It’s important to plan out different scenarios of how and when business operations can return to normal after a crisis.

Business Continuity Plan in the COVID-19 Era

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a serious threat to individuals, businesses and entire economies around the world. Many companies implemented mandatory work-from-home policies for their entire workforces to slow the spread of the virus. With the ongoing uncertainty surrounding coronavirus, organizations are now faced with a new challenge: how and when to return employees to the workplace safely. While your initial focus may be getting your employees back in the office, you must keep your employees’ safety, comfort and well-being in mind. Here are our five recommendations for business continuity management planning in the COVID-19 era.

1. Work toward a work-from-home + office hybrid model

Not all employees will be ready to return to the office after COVID-19 is suppressed. Some will need to continue to work from home for medical or personal reasons and therefore needs to be accounted for in your planning process. Other employees will be ready and eager to return to office life full-time or may want to continue to work remotely but commute into the office a few days every week. Consider instituting a hybrid work model with some employees working from the office and others working from home on either a permanent or rotating basis. This gives your staff the flexibility to work from wherever they are most comfortable and keeps everyone productive and engaged during this transitional phase. Decide what the business recovery point objective is and decide what works best for your team members; fully remote, hybrid work model, or the traditional office setting.

2. Build a tech stack that supports remote work

To support a distributed workforce made up of remote and in-office employees, you must invest in tools that enable seamless work and collaboration  regardless of your employees’ locations. Cloud-based technology allows employees to effectively work from anywhere they can connect to the internet. Productivity and collaboration no longer happen at a single office location. Delivered via the cloud, video conferencing , messaging apps and project management tools make it easier than ever before for distributed team members to meet, share ideas and seamlessly work together, even if they are not physically together.

3. Create a video-first culture

Employee satisfaction and happiness go hand in hand with a collaborative and inclusive culture. This is especially important when transitioning into a hybrid work model made up of remote and in-office workers. Remote employees should feel just as informed and included as their in-office colleagues. Create a video-first culture that places a priority on using video conferencing tools for all team meetings, as opposed to audio-only conference calls or text-based tools. The face-to-face interactions help teams with remote workers stay engaged during meetings and build collaborative and authentic relationships.

4. Reduce coronavirus transmission in the office

The best way to stop the spread of the virus in the workplace is to keep the germs out of the office in the first place. This starts with educating your workforce on the signs and symptoms of COVID-19 and encouraging employees to stay home if they feel sick. Additionally, employees should follow CDC guidelines for social distancing in the office and practice good hygiene by thoroughly washing their hands throughout the day. Workstations will need to be properly spaced apart and thoroughly disinfected and cleaned every day to reduce the spread of the virus.

5. Create a contingency strategy

Your business continuity plan for returning to work post-COVID-19 should include a contingency strategy in case there is an outbreak of the virus in the office. The key to a solid contingency strategy that quickly stops the spread of the virus is preparation and communication. Reach out to your staff immediately if an employee tests positive for the virus or comes into contact with an infected person. Employees should be able to start working remotely with short notice. This means employees will need to take their laptops and work home with them on a daily basis.

We rarely get advance notice that a catastrophic event is about to occur. Even with some lead time, multiple things can go wrong as the events unfold in unexpected ways. An effective business continuity plan is the best safety net for an organization facing a crisis. Even though costs and time are involved in creating the plan, a BCP is invaluable to your company. Well-thought-out and executed plans give your company the best chance of keeping your employees and assets safe while maintaining or restoring operations in a timely matter during a crisis.

Get stories like this in your inbox.

Digital Adoption and Globalization: How Video Conferencing Can Increase Productivity and Profit

Improving the Video Conferencing Experience in the Era of Remote Work

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months, it’s clear that remote work and distributed teams are here to stay, even after the pandemic recedes. While some workers will gradually find their way back to in-person (office or otherwise) workplace settings, this is just the on-ramp to the highway of working from anywhere for many others.

business continuity plans meaning

The Backbone of Resilient Organizations: Demystifying Business Continuity

What is business continuity.

No matter what business you’re in, unexpected disruptions can happen. Outages, natural disasters, supply chain failures, cyber incidents, equipment failures, and other physical and technical issues can all disrupt your ability to function and thrive.

To ensure your business is ready for unexpected events, you need to know what to do when things go wrong—and this is where business continuity comes in. Read on to learn more about business continuity, including disaster recovery, and what to include in your business continuity plan. Also, find out about business continuity management and business continuity solutions.

What is business continuity and why is it important?

Business continuity is an organization’s readiness to continue functioning during times of disruption. Business continuity is important because it reduces the potential impact of a disruption on customers, employees, and partners.

Having a business continuity plan (BCP)—which includes the analysis, technology, documentation, training, key team members, and procedures involved in resolving potential crisis situations—is vital for ensuring business continuity. A BCP includes goals focused on minimizing the potential impact of a crisis on a company’s financials and reputation—and maintaining industry, regional, and global compliance standards and regulations.

What’s the difference between business continuity and disaster recovery?

While business continuity and disaster recovery are often used interchangeably, they’re not the same thing.

Disaster recovery is a key part of a business continuity plan and is focused specifically on systems, data, and IT infrastructures. It includes technology, strategies, and processes for saving, restoring, and recovering data and protecting against cyber threats.

For a BCP to be successful in reducing downtime, mitigating risks, and remediating issues like data loss and corruption, disaster recovery measures are crucial. While both involve processes, people, and technology, business continuity offers a much wider scope to encompass the steps necessary for maintaining operations across every part of a business.

What should be included in a business continuity plan?

There are three components of a business continuity plan to consider:

  • Resilience—developing business functions and infrastructures to be prepared for an unexpected situation.
  • Recovery—setting up backup and recovery solutions for your applications, systems, and networks; determining what systems should be prioritized in the event of a disaster; and choosing a third-party vendor for additional help and resources if necessary.
  • Contingency—creating steps for what to do if a disruption occurs. This includes setting up a chain of command with key people and defining their responsibilities when it comes to communication, technology, third-party contracting, and coordinating temporary spaces. Keep these in mind at every step in the planning process to help ensure your BCP covers the full scope of your business.

With these three key components in mind, take the following steps to start building your business continuity plan:

  • Run a business impact analysis (BIA), which examines your current business functions, processes, and technology. An analysis will uncover potential vulnerabilities, risks, and threats you might encounter. Doing so helps identify areas of improvement and what to prioritize. After an analysis, you may consider making additional technology investments as well.
  • Outline and assign responsibilities for who will delegate, act, and support in the event of a crisis. These individuals will execute any necessary steps, be points of contact, gather resources, and guide efforts to minimize downtime for affected business functions.
  • Determine alternative forms of communication in case your standard means of communication are impacted by an outage or downtime.
  • Prepare backup equipment in case of damage or outages to prevent business-critical functions from stopping.
  • Understand and follow business continuity standards, which are legal and regulatory requirements determined for an industry. These are helpful when determining what steps you need to take in scenarios such as a breach or data loss. Creating a plan isn’t the last step—to make business continuity an important part of your organization, you also need business continuity management.

What is business continuity management?

Business continuity management includes the processes you put in place to set up and maintain your business continuity plan. It should include the following:

  • Creating policies that define the scope, objectives, and principles of business continuity. These should always keep the customer in mind to ensure you’ve documented what business-critical functions may impact customers and who is involved in customer service communication in the event of an outage or disruption.
  • Assembling business continuity teams throughout your organization who can communicate and enforce policies and procedures that are put in place. These employees will take part in ongoing reviews and tests to make sure everything and everyone is properly prepared for an incident.
  • Supporting a culture of business continuity by educating your entire organization about risks, policies, and documentation available. Offering ongoing training is an important way to increase awareness and gather data to see if there are any gaps or areas in need of improvement.
  • Maintaining up-to-date compliance standards and best practices to make sure your processes, workflows, and employees all work within the correct industry standards as they relate to data. If a business doesn’t keep up and an unexpected disruption occurs, there’s the risk of increased financial damages, legal costs, and fines.

Keeping track of all the continuously developing parts of a business continuity plan can be daunting for a growing organization. To reduce the time and effort involved, many businesses invest in business continuity solutions.

What kind of business continuity solutions should I consider?

The business continuity solutions you choose should be based on your organization’s needs. Depending on the industry you’re in, the size of your company, and your business-critical functions, you’ll find a range of software and resources available. These options include:

  • Cloud-based storage solutions, which provide a secure, remote location to back up and run workflows and applications, as well as store data. If there’s a breach or error causing data loss, you can access what you need from the cloud.
  • Backup and recovery tools for making copies of the data, applications, and systems within your IT infrastructure. If anything is deleted, corrupted, or shut down during a disruption, you can restore them and minimize downtime. These solutions offer different options for running backups, including automatically on a schedule, instantly, or as needed.
  • Virtualization tools that replicate environments and workspaces. If there’s an outage or device issues, employees can still access their applications and run processes as normal, reducing downtime that may affect services.
  • Contracts with third-party providers, such as disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) and backup-as-a-service. Based on your agreement, a provider can run data backups, host your IT infrastructure, and offer support in the event of a disaster. These services are typically offered with a subscription or a pay-as-you-use model and include support from IT and cybersecurity experts.
  • Unified communication tools to support collaboration across your entire organization. With one platform for connecting frontline workers, customer service agents, and other key members of your continuity teams, it’s easier to keep everyone up to date on disruptions and manage shifts and schedules to make sure the right people are available.

Business continuity should be a priority for any growing business looking to ensure the safety and security of their employees, technology, and data. To support the planning process, there are several solutions available to make business continuity planning easier. Though you can’t predict or prevent every disruption, with the right tools, a solid plan, and an educated team, business continuity can save you time, money, and resources across your organization.

Learn more • Developing your business continuity plan • Business continuity and disaster recovery

About the author

Microsoft logo

Get started with Microsoft 365

It’s the Office you know, plus the tools to help you work better together, so you can get more done—anytime, anywhere.

Business Insights and Ideas does not constitute professional tax or financial advice. You should contact your own tax or financial professional to discuss your situation..

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Generative AI
  • Business Operations
  • Cloud Computing
  • Data Center
  • Data Management
  • Emerging Technology
  • Enterprise Applications
  • IT Leadership
  • Digital Transformation
  • IT Strategy
  • IT Management
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • IT Operations
  • Project Management
  • Software Development
  • Vendors and Providers
  • United States
  • Middle East
  • Italia (Italy)
  • Netherlands
  • United Kingdom
  • New Zealand
  • Data Analytics & AI
  • Newsletters
  • Foundry Careers
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Copyright Notice
  • Member Preferences
  • About AdChoices
  • Your California Privacy Rights

Our Network

  • Computerworld
  • Network World

How to create an effective business continuity plan

A business continuity plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization must follow in the face of disaster, whether fire, flood, or cyberattack. Here’s how to create a plan that gives your business the best chance of surviving such an event.

Professional Meeting: Senior Businesswoman and Colleague in Discussion

The tumultuous events of the past several years have impacted practically every business. And with the number of extreme weather events, cyberattacks, and geopolitical conflicts continuing to rise, business leaders are bracing for the possibility of increasingly more frequent impactful incidents their organizations will need to respond to.

According to PwC’s 2023 Global Crisis and Resilience Survey , 96% of 1,812 business leaders said their organizations had experienced disruption in the past two years and 76% said their most serious disruption had a medium to high impact on operations.

It’s little wonder then that 89% of executives list resilience as one of their most important strategic priorities.

Yet at the same time, only 70% of respondents said they were confident in their organization’s ability to respond to disruptions, with PwC noting that its research shows that too many organizations “are lacking the foundational elements of resilience they need to be successful.”

A solid business continuity plan is one of those foundational elements.

“Every business should have the mindset that they will face a disaster, and every business needs a plan to address the different potential scenarios,” says Goh Ser Yoong, head of compliance at Advance.AI and a member of the Emerging Trends Working Group at the professional governance association ISACA.

A business continuity plan gives the organization the best shot at successfully navigating a disaster by providing ready-made directions on who should do what tasks in what order to keep the business viable.

Without such as a plan, the organization will take longer than necessary to recover from an event or incident — or may never recover at all.

What is a business continuity plan?

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a strategic playbook created to help an organization maintain or quickly resume business functions in the face of disruption, whether that disruption is caused by a natural disaster, civic unrest, cyberattack, or any other threat to business operations.

A business continuity plan outlines the procedures and instructions that the organization must follow during such an event to minimize downtime, covering business processes, assets, human resources, business partners, and more.

A business continuity plan is not the same as a disaster recovery plan , which focuses on restoring IT infrastructure and operations after a crisis. Still, a disaster recovery plan is part of the overall strategy to ensure business continuity, and the business continuity plan should inform the action items detailed in an organization’s disaster recovery plan. The two are tightly coupled, which is why they often are considered together and abbreviated as BCDR.

Why business continuity planning matters

Whether you operate a small business or a large corporation, it’s vital to retain and increase your customer base. There’s no better test of your capability to do so than right after an adverse event.

Because restoring IT is critical for most companies, numerous disaster recovery solutions are available. You can rely on IT to implement those solutions. But what about the rest of your business functions? Your company’s future depends on your people and processes. Being able to handle any incident effectively can have a positive effect on your company’s reputation and market value, and it can increase customer confidence.

Moreover, there are increasing consumer and regulatory expectations for both enterprise security and continuity today. Consequently, organizations must prioritize continuity planning to prevent not only business losses, but financial, legal, reputational, and regulatory consequences.

For example, the risk of having an organization’s “license to operate” withdrawn by a regulator or having conditions applied (retrospectively or prospectively) can adversely affect market value and consumer confidence.

Building (and updating) a business continuity plan

Whether building the organization’s first business continuity plan or updating an existing one, the process involves multiple essential steps.

Assess business processes for criticality and vulnerability: Business continuity planning “starts with understanding what’s most important to the business,” says Joe Nocera, principle in the cyber risk and regulatory practice at PwC, a professional services firm.

So the first step in building your business continuity plan is assessing your business processes to determine which are the most critical; which are the most vulnerable and to what type of events; and what are the potential losses if those processes go down for a day, a few days, or a week.

“This step essentially determines what you are trying to protect and what you are trying to keep up for systems,” says Todd Renner, senior managing director in the cybersecurity practice at FTI Consulting.

This assessment is more demanding than ever before because of the complexity of today’s hybrid workplace, the modern IT environment, and the reliance on business partners and third-party providers to perform or support critical processes.

Given that complexity, Goh says a thorough assessment requires an inventory of not only key processes but also the supporting components — including the IT systems, networks, people, and outside vendors — as well as the risks to those components.

This is essentially a business impact analysis.

Determine your organization’s RTO and RPO: The next step in building a business continuity plan is determining the organization’s recovery time objective (RTO), which is the target amount of time between point of failure and the resumption of operations, and the recovery point objective (RPO), which is the maximum amount of data loss an organization can withstand.

Each organization has its own RTO and RPO based on the nature of its business, industry, regulatory requirements, and other operational factors. Moreover, different parts of a business can have different RTOs and RPOs, which executives need to establish, Nocera says.

“When you meet with individual aspects of the business, everyone says everything [they do] is important; no one wants to say their part of the business is less critical, but in reality you have to have those challenging conversations and determinations about what is actually critical to the business and to business continuity,” he adds.

Detail the steps, roles, and responsibilities for continuity: Once that is done, business leaders should use the RTO and the RPO, along with the business impact analysis, to determine the specific tasks that need to happen, by whom, and in what order to ensure business continuity.

“It’s taking the key components of your analysis and designing a plan that outlines roles and responsibilities, about who does what. It gets into the nitty-gritty on how you’re going to keep the company up and running,” Renner explains.

One common business continuity planning tool is a checklist that includes supplies and equipment, the location of data backups and backup sites, where the plan is available and who should have it, and contact information for emergency responders, key personnel, and backup site providers.

Although the list of possible scenarios that could impact business operations can seem extensive, Goh says business leaders don’t have to compile an exhaustive list of potential incidents. Rather, they should compile a list that includes likely incidents as well as representative ones so that they can create responses that have a higher likelihood of ensuring continuity even when faced with an unimagined disaster.

“So even if it’s an unexpected event, they can pull those building blocks from the plan and apply them to the unique crisis they’re facing,” Nocera says.

The importance of testing the business continuity plan

Devising a business continuity plan is not enough to ensure preparedness; testing and practicing are other critical components.

Renner says testing and practicing offer a few important benefits.

First, they show whether or how well a plan will work.

Testing and practicing help prepare all stakeholders for an actual incident, helping them build the muscle memory needed to respond as quickly and as confidently as possible during a crisis.

They also help identify gaps in the devised plan. As Renner says: “Every tabletop exercise that I’ve ever done has been an eye-opener for everyone involved.”

Additionally, they help identify where there may be misalignment of objectives. For example, executives may have deprioritized the importance of restoring certain IT systems only to realize during a drill that those are essential for supporting critical processes.

Types and timing of tests

Many organizations test a business continuity plan two to four times a year. Experts say the frequency of tests, as well as reviews and updates, depends on the organization itself — its industry, its speed of innovation and transformation, the amount of turnover of key personnel, the number of business processes, and so on.

Common tests include tabletop exercises , structured walk-throughs, and simulations. Test teams are usually composed of the recovery coordinator and members from each functional unit.

A tabletop exercise usually occurs in a conference room with the team poring over the plan, looking for gaps and ensuring that all business units are represented therein.

In a structured walk-through, each team member walks through his or her components of the plan in detail to identify weaknesses. Often, the team works through the test with a specific disaster in mind. Some organizations incorporate drills and disaster role-playing into the structured walk-through. Any weaknesses should be corrected and an updated plan distributed to all pertinent staff.

Some experts also advise a full emergency evacuation drill at least once a year.

Meanwhile, disaster simulation testing — which can be quite involved — should still be performed annually. For this test, create an environment that simulates an actual disaster, with all the equipment, supplies and personnel (including business partners and vendors) who would be needed. The purpose of a simulation is to determine whether the organization and its staff can carry out critical business functions during an actual event.

During each phase of business continuity plan testing, include some new employees on the test team. “Fresh eyes” might detect gaps or lapses of information that experienced team members could overlook.

Reviewing and updating the business continuity plan should likewise happen on an ongoing basis.

“It should be a living document. It shouldn’t be shelved. It shouldn’t be just a check-the-box exercise,” Renner says.

Otherwise, plans go stale and are of no use when needed.

Bring key personnel together at least annually to review the plan and discuss any areas that must be modified.

Prior to the review, solicit feedback from staff to incorporate into the plan. Ask all departments or business units to review the plan, including branch locations or other remote units.

Furthermore, a strong business continuity function calls for reviewing the organization’s response in the event of an actual event. This allows executives and their teams to identify what the organization did well and where it needs to improve.

How to ensure business continuity plan support, awareness

One way to ensure your plan is not successful is to adopt a casual attitude toward its importance. Every business continuity plan must be supported from the top down. That means senior management must be represented when creating and updating the plan; no one can delegate that responsibility to subordinates. In addition, the plan is likely to remain fresh and viable if senior management makes it a priority by dedicating time for adequate review and testing.

Management is also key to promoting user awareness. If employees don’t know about the plan, how will they be able to react appropriately when every minute counts?

Although plan distribution and training can be conducted by business unit managers or HR staff, have someone from the top kick off training and punctuate its significance. It’ll have a greater impact on all employees, giving the plan more credibility and urgency.

Related content

Sap names philipp herzig as chief artificial intelligence officer, adp’s cloud transformation pays dividends, why tomago aluminium reversed course on its cloud journey, microsoft invests €3.2 billion in ai and the cloud in germany, from our editors straight to your inbox, show me more, henkel embraces gen ai as enabler and strategic disruptor.

Image

4 ways to ensure CEO support for your digital strategy

Image

Prioritizing AI? Don't shortchange IT fundamentals

Image

CIO Leadership Live UK with Graham OSullivan, CIO, OneFamily

Image

CIO Leadership Live Canada with Lekan Olawoye, Founder, BPTN

Image

CIO Leadership Live Australia with Brett Reedman, Chief Information Officer, Catholic Healthcare

Image

CIO Leadership Live UK with Graham O'Sullivan, CIO, OneFamily

Image

The Workplace Changes Companies Aren’t Prepared For

Image

Sponsored Links

  • Experience the comprehensive solution that provides end-to-end visibility across applications, infrastructure, and network layers. Plus improve your IT operations and enhance overall business performance. Sign up for a Free Trial and explore the benefits
  • Want to justify your IT investments faster? IDC reports on how to measure business impact.
  • Read this IDC spotlight to learn what commonly prevents value realization – and how to solve it
  • Ironstream for Splunk®
  • Ironstream for ServiceNow®
  • Automate Evolve
  • Automate Studio
  • Assure Security
  • Assure MIMIX
  • Assure MIMIX for AIX®
  • Assure QuickEDD
  • Assure iTERA
  • Syncsort MFX
  • Syncsort Optimize IMS
  • Syncsort Optimize DB2
  • Syncsort Optimize IDMS
  • Syncsort Network Management
  • Syncsort Capacity Management
  • Spectrum Context Graph
  • Spectrum Discovery
  • Spectrum Global Addressing
  • Spectrum Quality
  • Trillium Discovery
  • Trillium Geolocation
  • Trillium Quality
  • Data360 Analyze
  • Data360 DQ+
  • Data360 Govern
  • Precisely EnterWorks
  • Spectrum Spatial
  • Spectrum Spatial Routing
  • Spectrum Spatial Insights
  • Spectrum Global Geocoding
  • Spectrum Enterprise Tax
  • MapInfo Pro
  • Precisely Addresses
  • Precisely Boundaries
  • Precisely Demographics
  • Precisely Points of Interest
  • Precisely Streets
  • EngageOne Communicate
  • EngageOne Digital Self-Service
  • EngageOne Vault
  • EngageOne Compose
  • EngageOne Enrichment
  • Precisely Data Experience
  • Customer engagement
  • Digital self-service
  • Digital archiving
  • Email and SMS
  • Print to digital
  • Data enrichment
  • Data integrity
  • Data integration
  • Security Information and Event Management
  • Real-time CDC and ETL
  • IT Operations Analytics
  • IT Operations Management
  • Cloud data warehousing
  • Data governance
  • Data catalog
  • Data quality
  • Data quality & enrichment as a service
  • Data matching & entity resolution
  • Customer 360
  • Application data management
  • Address validation/standardization
  • Spatial analytics
  • Geocoding and data enrichment
  • Master data management
  • Process automation
  • Compliance with security regulations
  • Security monitoring and reporting
  • High availability and disaster recovery
  • Data privacy
  • Access control
  • IBM mainframe
  • Sort optimization
  • Microsoft Azure
  • SAP process automation
  • Excel to SAP automation
  • SAP master data management
  • SAP finance automation
  • Financial services
  • Telecommunications
  • Precisely Strategic Services
  • Professional services
  • Analyst reports
  • Customer stories
  • Infographics
  • Product demos
  • Solution sheets
  • White papers
  • IBM i security
  • Location intelligence
  • Financial service and banking
  • Supply Chain
  • Find support by product
  • Create a customer case
  • Create a partner case
  • Legacy Syncsort License keys
  • Online forums
  • Precisely U
  • Software Maintenance Handbook
  • Location Intelligence Product Downloads
  • Precisely APIs
  • MapInfo Marketplace
  • Contact Support
  • Global offices
  • Careers and Culture
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Press releases
  • In the news
  • Get in touch

Privacy Policy

Business continuity plan (bcp), what is a business continuity plan, precisely offers high availability and disaster recovery for ibm i and aix power systems.

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a document that outlines how a business will continue operating during an unplanned disruption in service. The BCP defines any and all risks that can affect the company's operations, including natural disasters—such as fire, flood, or weather-related events—and cyber attacks, and how they will be managed. The BCP is generally conceived in advance and involves input from key stakeholders and personnel.

A Business Continuity Plan is different from a disaster recovery plan, which focuses on the recovery of a company's IT system after a crisis. A full Business Continuity Plan should address all business-critical areas, such as communication, supply chain disruption, labor supply and training, physical site access, decision making continuity and IT continuity.  

Developing a Business Continuity Plan

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

  • Performing a business impact analysis of all potential risks to the business and how they affect time-sensitive functions and resources.
  • Identifying the steps necessary to recover critical business functions.
  • Creation of a continuity team for the organization that will develop a plan for managing disruptions.
  • Training of the continuity team and continuous simulations to test the plan.

The BCP document should include key details such as emergency contact information so that team members can contact each other and make plans for resuming operations, on-site if possible, or at home offices and offsite locations. This includes use of data backup and disaster recovery plans.

The BCP 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 identified and corrected.

The role of high availability and disaster recovery solutions

Precisely offers IBM i and IBM AIX high availability and disaster recovery solutions , key elements of a full Business Continuity plan. With high availability or disaster recovery software from Precisely, companies can protect their business from downtime and data loss by maintaining a real-time copy of production servers and their data at a remote location. In the event of a disruption, a failover can be performed to move production operations to the recovery server with minimal business disruption, or data can be recovered from that replica. 

  • Advisera Home
  • ISO in General

Partner Panel

ISO 22301 Documentation Toolkits

Iso 22301 training.

  • Documentation Toolkits
  • White Papers
  • Templates & Tools

Where to Start

New ai tool.

  • Live Consultations
  • Consultant Directory
  • For Consultants

Dejan Kosutic

Dejan Kosutic

  • Get Started

ISO-27001-ISO-22301-blog

ISO 27001 & ISO 22301 Knowledge base

Business continuity plan: how to structure it according to iso 22301.

Advisera Dejan Kosutic

In my experience, companies usually find two things in their business continuity or information security management to be the most difficult: risk assessment, and business continuity planning. Here I’ll give you some tips on business continuity plans (BCP).

ISO 22301 business continuity plan should include Purpose, scope and users, Reference documents, Assumptions, Roles and responsibilities, Key contacts, Plan activation and deactivation, Communication, Incident response, Physical sites and transportation, Order of recovery for activities, Recovery plans for activities, Disaster recovery plan, Required resources, and Restoring and resuming activities from temporary measures.

What is a business continuity plan?

According to ISO 22301 , business continuity plan is defined as “documented procedures that guide organizations to respond, recover, resume, and restore to a pre-defined level of operation following disruption.” (clause 3.5)

This basically means that BCP focuses on developing plans/procedures, but it doesn’t include the analysis that forms the basis of such planning, nor the means of maintaining such plans – all these are required elements of business continuity management that are necessary for enabling successful contingency planning.

To read more about analysis, see Five Tips for Successful Business Impact Analysis , and to find out how to interpret the analysis, read Can business continuity strategy save your money? .

Business continuity plan example

Here’s what I found to be the optimal structure for the business continuity plan for smaller and midsize companies, and what each section should include:

Purpose, scope and users – why this plan is developed, its objectives, which parts of the organization it covers, and who should read it.

Reference documents – to which documents does this plan relate? Normally, these are Business Continuity Policy, Business Impact Analysis, Business Continuity Strategy, etc.

Assumptions – the prerequisites that need to exist in order for this plan to be effective.

Roles and responsibilities – who will be responsible for managing the disruptive incident, and who is authorized to perform certain activities in case of a disruptive incident – e.g. activation of the plans, urgent purchases, communication with media, etc.

Key contacts – contact details for persons who will participate in the execution of the business continuity plan – this is usually one of the annexes of the plan.

Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Structure According to ISO 22301

Plan activation and deactivation – in which cases can the plan be activated, and the method of activation; which conditions need to exist to deactivate the plan. Communication – which communication means will be used between different teams and with other interested parties during the disruptive incident. Who is in charge of communicating with each interested party, and the special rules of communication with media and government agencies.

Incident response – how to react initially to an incident in order to reduce the damage – this is very often an annex to the main plan.

Physical sites and transportation – which are the primary and alternative sites, where the assembly points are, and how to get from primary to alternative sites.

Order of recovery for activities – list of all the activities, with precise Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for each.

Recovery plans for activities – description of step-by-step actions and responsibilities for recovering manpower, facilities, infrastructure, software, information, and processes, including interdependencies and interactions with other activities and external interested parties – these are very often annexes to the main plan. To read more about them, see How to write business continuity plans?

Disaster recovery plan – this is normally a type of recovery plan that focuses on recovering the information and communication technology infrastructure. To read more about the relationship between disaster recovery and business continuity, see Disaster recovery vs business continuity .

Required resources – a list of all the employees, third-party services, facilities, infrastructure, information, equipment, etc. that are necessary to perform the recovery, and who is responsible to provide each of them.

Restoring and resuming activities from temporary measures – how to restore business activities back to business-as-usual once the disruptive incident has been resolved.

What I like about ISO 22301 is that it requires all the elements that are necessary for this plan to be useful in case of a disaster (or any other disruption in a company’s activities). However, no standard can help you unless you understand this task seriously – a properly written and comprehensive plan can save your company in tough times, while a superficially written plan will only make things worse.

Click here to see a sample  Business Continuity Plan .

Banner image

Writing a business continuity plan according to ISO 22301

Free webinar explains the basics about business continuity plans and how to structure them

Banner image

You may unsubscribe at any time. For more information, please see our privacy notice .

U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

world globe

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

business continuity plans meaning

Business Continuity Planning

world globe

Organize a business continuity team and compile a  business continuity plan  to manage a business disruption. Learn more about how to put together and test a business continuity plan with the videos below.

Business Continuity Plan Supporting Resources

  • Business Continuity Plan Situation Manual
  • Business Continuity Plan Test Exercise Planner Instructions
  • Business Continuity Plan Test Facilitator and Evaluator Handbook

Business Continuity Training Videos

The Business Continuity Planning Suite is no longer supported or available for download.

feature_mini img

Business Continuity Training Introduction

An overview of the concepts detailed within this training. Also, included is a humorous, short video that introduces viewers to the concept of business continuity planning and highlights the benefits of having a plan. Two men in an elevator experience a spectrum of disasters from a loss of power, to rain, fire, and a human threat. One man is prepared for each disaster and the other is not.

View on YouTube

Business Continuity Training Part 1: What is Business Continuity Planning?

An explanation of what business continuity planning means and what it entails to create a business continuity plan. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company that has successfully implemented a business continuity plan and includes a discussion about what business continuity planning means to them.

Business Continuity Training Part 2: Why is Business Continuity Planning Important?

An examination of the value a business continuity plan can bring to an organization. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company that has successfully implemented a business continuity plan and includes a discussion about how business continuity planning has been valuable to them.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: What's the Business Continuity Planning Process?

An overview of the business continuity planning process. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company about its process of successfully implementing a business continuity plan.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 1

The first of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “prepare” to create a business continuity plan.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 2

The second of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “define” their business continuity plan objectives.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 3

The third of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “identify” and prioritize potential risks and impacts.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 4

The fourth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “develop” business continuity strategies.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 5

The fifth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should define their “teams” and tasks.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 6

The sixth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “test” their business continuity plans. View on YouTube

Last Updated: 12/21/2023

Return to top

IMAGES

  1. The importance of Business Continuity Planning

    business continuity plans meaning

  2. What is business continuity plan (BCP)?

    business continuity plans meaning

  3. How to create an effective business continuity plan?

    business continuity plans meaning

  4. Building a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

    business continuity plans meaning

  5. 7 Stages of a Business Continuity Plan

    business continuity plans meaning

  6. Business Continuity Plan in Times of Crisis

    business continuity plans meaning

VIDEO

  1. Business Continuity Management Element Definitions

  2. Importance Of Creating Awareness About Your Business Continuity Plans Among Your Employees And How T

  3. Business Continuity Planning BCP

  4. Task 10 of the Level 7 NVQ Diploma in Strategic Management & Leadership

  5. ServiceNow Business Continuity Management (BCM) Overview

  6. S1E20 Progressive Business Continuity Plans with James Knox

COMMENTS

  1. What Is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP), and How Does It Work?

    Business Continuity Planning - BCP: The business continuity planning (BCP) is the creation of a strategy through the recognition of threats and risks facing a company, with an eye to ensure that ...

  2. What is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)?

    Business continuity planning is a proactive business process that lets a company understand potential threats, vulnerabilities and weaknesses to its organization in times of crisis. The creation of a business continuity program ensures company leaders can react quickly and efficiently to business interruption.

  3. What is business continuity and why is it important?

    Business continuity is a proactive way to ensure mission-critical business operations proceed during a disruption or in the event of a disaster. A successful business continuity plan includes the following: Clear and comprehensive guidelines. Business continuity features clear guidelines for what an organization must do to maintain operations.

  4. Business continuity planning

    Business continuity planning life cycle. Business continuity may be defined as "the capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products or services at pre-defined acceptable levels following a disruptive incident", and business continuity planning (or business continuity and resiliency planning) is the process of creating systems of prevention and recovery to deal with potential ...

  5. What Is A Business Continuity Plan? [+ Template & Examples]

    1. Operational. Operational continuity means that the systems and processes your business relies on are able to continue functioning without disruption. As these processes are critical to business operations, it's important to have a plan in place in case disruption occurs so you can minimize the loss of revenue. 2.

  6. What Is Business Continuity?

    A business continuity strategy is a summary of the mitigation, crisis, and recovery plans to be implemented after a disruption to resume normal operations. "Business continuity strategy" is often used interchangeably with "business continuity plan." Both consider the broader goals, legal and regulatory requirements, personnel, and even the ...

  7. What is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)?

    A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a detailed strategy and set of systems for ensuring an organization's ability to prevent or rapidly recover from a significant disruption to its operations.The plan is essentially a playbook for how any type of organization—such as a private-sector company, a government agency or a school—will continue its day-to-day business during a disaster scenario ...

  8. Introduction to Business Continuity

    Introduction to Business Continuity. Business continuity is having a plan to deal with major disruption, like cyber attacks, floods, and supply chain failures. Whether it's a business, public sector organization, or charity, you need to know how you can keep going under any circumstances.

  9. All about Business Continuity Planning

    A business continuity plan includes guidelines and procedures to guide a business through disruption. The efforts to create a plan are the same for large or small organizations. A simple plan is better than no plan. The basic steps for writing a business continuity plan are as follows: Create a governance team.

  10. Definition of Business Continuity Planning (BCP)

    Business continuity planning (BCP) is a broad disaster recovery approach whereby enterprises plan for recovery of the entire business process. This includes a plan for workspaces, telephones, workstations, servers, applications, network connections and any other resources required in the business process.

  11. Business Continuity Plan: Example & How to Write

    Step 3: Establish the business continuity plan objectives. Step 4: Evaluate the potential impact of disruptions to the business and its workers. Step 5: List actions to protect the business. Step 6: Organize contact lists. Step 7: Maintain, review, and continuously update the business continuity plan.

  12. 5 Step Guide to Business Continuity Planning (BCP) in 2021

    A business continuity plan (BCP) is defined as a protocol of preventing and recovering from potentially large threats to the company's business continuity. This article explains what a business continuity plan is today, its key benefits, and a step-by-step guide to creating a formidable plan. ... Definition, Cloud and On-premise, Benefits and ...

  13. Business Continuity Planning: Definition, Examples and How ...

    Step 1: Conduct a business impact analysis. The first step in developing an organization-wide business continuity plan is conducting a business impact analysis and risk assessment exercise. The initial review will identify threats to your organization and determine how each crisis will impact your business.

  14. What is Business Continuity?

    Business continuity is an organization's readiness to continue functioning during times of disruption. Business continuity is important because it reduces the potential impact of a disruption on customers, employees, and partners. Having a business continuity plan (BCP)—which includes the analysis, technology, documentation, training, key ...

  15. How to create an effective business continuity plan

    A business continuity plan (BCP) is a strategic playbook created to help an organization maintain or quickly resume business functions in the face of disruption, whether that disruption is caused ...

  16. Business Continuity Planning (BCP)

    A business continuity planning definition outlines procedures and strategies to prevent damage, resume operations, and recover during emergency or disaster events. It is a recovery approach for telecommunications, workstations, network security systems, data backup servers, and other vital resources for the smooth functioning of business ...

  17. Business Continuity Plan: What It Is and How To Make One

    1. Prepare a business impact analysis. The first step of creating a business continuity plan is to formulate a business impact analysis. This analysis looks at what functions of a business would be impacted by various disasters as well as the effects of these impacts on the organization. The business impact analysis should include the ...

  18. What is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)?

    Business Continuity Plan: A business continuity plan (BCP) is a plan to help ensure that business processes can continue during a time of emergency or disaster. Such emergencies or disasters might include a fire or any other case where business is not able to occur under normal conditions. Businesses need to look at all such potential threats ...

  19. Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Definition

    A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a document that outlines how a business will continue operating during an unplanned disruption in service. The BCP defines any and all risks that can affect the company's operations, including natural disasters—such as fire, flood, or weather-related events—and cyber attacks, and how they will be managed.

  20. Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Structure According to ISO 22301

    What is a business continuity plan? According to ISO 22301, business continuity plan is defined as "documented procedures that guide organizations to respond, recover, resume, and restore to a pre-defined level of operation following disruption." (clause 3.5). This basically means that BCP focuses on developing plans/procedures, but it doesn't include the analysis that forms the basis of ...

  21. Business Continuity Planning

    Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 6. The sixth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should "test" their business continuity plans. Organize a business continuity team and compile a business ...

  22. Business Continuity Plan

    The definition of business continuity means planning strategically to prepare for a disaster. A business continuity plan is the documented strategy an organization has put in place for dealing ...

  23. Business Continuity Planning (BCP)

    SIFMA's Business Continuity Planning page. FINRA requires firms to create and maintain written business continuity plans (BCPs) relating to an emergency or significant business disruption. Rule 4370—FINRA's emergency preparedness rule — spells out the required BCP procedures. A firm's BCP must be appropriate to the scale and scope of its ...