Business Continuity Plan

What is Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery?

Business continuity plans detail how a company will operate during and after a disaster. It may include contingency plans that detail how the company will continue to operate even if it is forced to relocate. Smaller interruptions or minor disasters, such as protracted power outages, may be factored into business continuity planning.

Disaster recovery refers to a company’s plans for dealing with a major incident such a natural disaster, fire, terrorist attack, active shooter, or cybercrime. Disaster recovery refers to the steps taken by a company to respond to a disaster and resume normal operations as soon as possible.

Business continuity and disaster recovery planning often appear to be intertwined. While the two concepts are not identical, they do share some similarities and function best when developed together.

Both are proactive measures that assist a company in preparing for unexpected, catastrophic situations. Rather than reacting to a disaster, both disciplines take a proactive approach, attempting to mitigate the consequences of a disaster before it occurs.

Both can be used by businesses to prepare for a variety of natural and man-made disasters. Prepare for pandemics, natural disasters, wildfires, and even cyberattacks with business continuity and disaster recovery.

Both require continuous evaluation and, on sometimes, adjustment to ensure that they remain aligned with the company’s growing aims. These strategies will be tested and modified as needed by an emergency management leader.

Example of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery:

A disaster recovery plan, which includes techniques for dealing with IT disruptions to networks, servers, personal computers, and mobile devices, is an important part of a business continuity plan (BCP). The strategy should include how to reestablish office productivity and enterprise software in order to meet critical company needs. The plan should include manual workarounds so that operations can continue until computer systems can be restored.

Why is business continuity and disaster recovery important?

Organizations can prepare for potentially disruptive occurrences by developing a business continuity and disaster recovery plan. It improves an organization’s ability to continue operations with minimal or no disruption and lowers the danger of a natural or man-made disaster.