What is Business Continuity ?

If an enterprise's operations are disrupted by disaster, the right business continuity strategy ensures processes are in place for the company to continue operating effectively. Crucially, business continuity provides the organization with time and breathing space to address the source of the interruption.

Business Continuity Plan

Business Continuity Definition

Threats to business continuity come from all angles. They may be a natural disaster or a malicious act, such as a cyber attack. Unfortunately, during the lifecycle of any successful business, it is perhaps inevitable that you will risk or experience some form of disruption to your operations. If not managed properly, this can cause serious financial damage and, in worst-case scenarios, could even bring an organization to its knees.

For example, a business continuity incident triggered by IT downtime can cost $5,600 per minute on average, according to Gartner*. To avoid such disastrous financial outcomes – as well as any associated reputational damage – a coherent business continuity strategy is vital for protecting the organization now and in the future.

Such continuity planning puts processes and systems in place that make sure if a disaster does strike, the organization can continue running critical business functions and services without interruption. This approach is typically combined with recovery plans and procedures designed to resolve any event at speed and ideally, without causing serious long-lasting disruption, so continuity in business is protected.

What is business continuity management vs business continuity planning?

What is business continuity management?

Adopting a holistic approach, business continuity management (BCM) takes a macro view of managing and recovering from a disruption, designed to let the company continue operating during and after the event, no matter the crisis. BCM’s scope takes in the entire organization, assessing and mapping out any potential vulnerabilities – and how to keep essential systems and services operational during the disruption.

What is business continuity planning?

Business continuity planning is a subset of BCM, detailing the processes and steps that should be utilized to address specific types of disruption or disaster. These include what immediate responses should be taken as well as detailed disaster recovery plans for all aspects of business operations, from IT recovery systems and comms management through to logistics plans.

How to create business continuity

Continuity in business focuses on three main considerations. The first is baking in resilience to fend off potential disasters and crises before they happen. This sees the introduction of systems, processes, services, and human resource strategies designed from the ground up to better manage and minimize different threat types and their impact, as well as effectively manage a crisis. Creating such a cohesive integrated approach – that combines both proactive and reactive continuity planning measures for dealing with disaster – ensures the organization is always on the right footing, instead of trying to play ‘business continuity catch-up’ once a disaster or crisis has occurred.

Rapid Recovery

Rapid disaster recovery focuses exclusively on restoring IT systems, data, comms, and more as soon as possible when business continuity is affected by the disaster. Crucially, recovery process responsibilities should be assigned to individuals so all stakeholders understand who is in charge of which recovery element. Together, this reduces the risk of downtime and data loss as the right people and processes – the latter including data backup or off-site data storage – are already in place. Get your recovery plans and management right, and you can get core IT systems, associated data sets, and business functions back up and running again in no time at all.

Contingencies to Count On

Finally, contingency processes and risk management systems are rolled out to manage a range of different disruption scenarios to protect continuity in business. These make sure the fallout from any event can be managed more efficiently, for example, by introducing remote work strategies if premises become inaccessible; continuity backup systems for power outages; diversifying supply chains; designating a crisis management team, and more. Importantly, business continuity contingency planning should undergo regular testing to make sure all measures remain up-to-date and relevant within an ever-evolving company infrastructure.

What is business continuity tool?

Several disaster recovery tools are available to help organizations create, support, and execute a comprehensive business continuity plan. These include:

Back up data

A comprehensive data backup strategy is vital for safeguarding company data so it can be recovered at speed. To introduce strong levels of resilience, we recommend the ‘3, 2, 1’ principle, where three copies of your data are created. These data sets should be stored on two different media – such as an external hard drive and a server – while one copy should be securely stored off-site (such as on a remote server). To secure the best continuity in business, also consider partnering up with a provider that offers a Backup as a Service solution or can virtualize the organization’s entire computing environment (see below).

Data Protection

As part of an effective crisis management plan, tools must be introduced that protect data as well as reduce the impact of data loss and downtime. These should include automated cloud backups, data encryption to secure operations, and disaster recovery tools that ensure that, if a disaster does occur, backups can be accessed at speed to massively reduce downtime. Finally, if partnering with a reputable cloud provider – see ‘Get into the cloud’ – the provider will ensure all software is updated and patched regularly to remove software vulnerabilities that might otherwise be exploited by bad actors.

Create Hot/Cold Sites

Designed for dealing with a natural disaster or fire, a cold site is a second site where employees can work if required. It only offers a basic infrastructure, but in the short term, it offers a better business continuity alternative than simply shutting up shop. A hot site is similar to a cold site, but with one key resilience difference – it has access to a copy of all current company data sets, so all services and systems can continue to operate as normally as possible.

Plan Properly

With so many moving parts required for successful business continuity planning, it makes sense to utilize business continuity planning software. This allows enterprises to develop and manage a continuity and disaster recovery plan within a structured framework, ensuring no area is overlooked. Business continuity planning software’s role during an event is also imperative, as it acts as a single source of truth for re-establishing continuity in business. The solution can also be used to build resilience, minimize disruption, help update continuity planning, and guarantee any plans are always in alignment with the best disaster recovery practices and data regulations.