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Business Continuity Plan Basics
Understanding BCPs
Benefits of BCPs
How to Create a BCP
BCP & Impact Analysis
BCP vs. Disaster Recovery Plan

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Business Continuity Plan FAQs

The Bottom Line

What is a business continuity plan (bcp), and how does it work.

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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 information technology 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 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.

Ready. “ IT Disaster Recovery Plan .”

Federal Emergency Management Agency. " Business Process Analysis and Business Impact Analysis User Guide ." Pages 15-17.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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Business Continuity Planning

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.

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

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Writing an Effective Business Continuity Plan

Power through business disruptions and ascertain operational stability with a practical and effective Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

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What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan is a practical guide developed by companies to enable continuous operations in the event of major business disruptions like natural disasters and global lockdowns. Business continuity planning usually involves analyzing the impact of disrupted business processes and determining recovery strategies with management. Business continuity plans should be properly documented and tested through exercises for optimal effectiveness.

The goal of a business continuity plan is to strengthen the defense of businesses against various potential disruptions. It also aims to maintain critical business functions during unforeseen disasters.

Business continuity has increasingly become a top priority for organizations around the world. A BCP is important because it helps companies maintain essential functions amid or after emergencies, protecting their reputation and minimizing financial losses. Moreover, it helps employers stay on top of disruptive incidents and empower workers to complete job tasks confidently.

What are the 7 Elements of a Business Continuity Plan?

Business continuity planning enables businesses, small or large, to ensure resilient operations. For an effective plan, the following elements should be included:

BCP Team – Amid a disaster or emergency, having a team or point person to go to will be essential. The BCP team will be responsible for planning and testing business continuity strategies. The background of each member of the BCP team can vary from organization managers or supervisors to specialists.
Business Impact Analysis (BIA) – A BIA identifies, quantifies, and qualifies the impact of a loss, interruption, or disruption. Having a BIA will be essential in discovering risks that your business is exposed to and the potential disruptions that may occur.
Risk Mitigation – This element pertains to the strategies against the risks that were discovered during the BIA. Risk mitigation strategies may include putting up security and safety systems in the workplace, conducting preventive maintenance of vehicles , machines, equipment, or any asset vital to operations, and training employees , among others.
Business Continuity Strategies – A good BCP should establish strategies or alternate practices to keep the business running despite disruptions or disasters.
Business Continuity Plan – The business continuity plan is a combination of findings from the performed BIA and the recovery strategies established by the organization. A BCP typically includes 4 key components: scope and objectives, operations at risk, recovery strategy, and roles and responsibilities.
Training – All relevant personnel associated with the business continuity, disaster recovery, and incident response process should be trained according to the BCP plan that’s established and agreed upon.
Testing – In this phase, strategies and plans are rehearsed or exercised to demonstrate their effectiveness. Testing the plan before rolling it out will enable the BCP team to discover potential flaws and fix them before they lead to damage or injury. It’s recommended to review and test the plan periodically to ensure that all protocols and strategies are up-to-date.

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How to Write a BCP

Creating a business continuity plan seems to be a daunting task at first, especially for managers of operations, information technology, and human resources as they are often designated with this duty. As recommended by the International Labour Organization (ILO), listed below are general steps in developing a business continuity plan for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs):

Step 1: Determine the risk profile through a self-assessment using the 4Ps framework—People, Processes, Profits, and Partnerships.
Step 2: Identify key products, services, or functions.
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 BCP.

Create your own Business Continuity Plan checklist

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Business Continuity Plan | View Sample PDF

When planning for business continuity, it helps to break down its elements into quickly-understood segments. Keeping the plan user-focused can also help ensure usability and promote transferability. The following is a brief business continuity plan example:

Scope and Objectives:

This BCP is to ensure the continuity of IT services and customer lines in the event of an unforeseen and prolonged power shutdown. Power disruption could be caused by emergency weather conditions or a building fire. Functional areas that are prioritized for recovery in this BCP include the customer support desk and finance team.

Operations at Risk:

Operation: Customer Support Operation Description: Customer support team looking after 24-hour global operations of live chat and customer calls for US, EMEA and APAC regions Business Impact: Critical Impact description: 100% of live chats go through the customer support team in Manila. 20% of live calls are routed to Manila office. A disruption would mean no more live chat support and customers experiencing significant wait times on calls Project timeline and team schedules

Recovery Strategy:

IT personnel and BCP committees should operate alternate backup programs and servers to help save customer requests after power outage. Customer support should be able to receive the requests and respond to customers within 30 minutes. IT Director should operate alternate server rooms in Area B if the power outage last more than an hour to prevent huge revenue loss.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Representative: Jon Sims Role: Head of Operations Contact Details: [email protected] Description of Responsibilities: 1. Must ensure BCPs are updated and must coordinate with team leaders regarding changes 2. Helps notify key stakeholders in EMEA region of threats in Customer Support programs and tools

Create and Implement Effective BCPs with SafetyCulture

Why use safetyculture.

Even when disruptions can force businesses to shut down, yours doesn’t have to. Aim for operational stability by developing and implementing a business continuity plan with the help of a simple tool like SafetyCulture. SafetyCulture is a digital platform that empowers people to work safely and efficiently through mobile checklists, actions, and reporting.

Optimize your organization’s operations and workflow with SafetyCulture. Our digital platform enables you to:

Simplify processes by automating manual and repetitive tasks
Maintain safety, quality, and compliance standards with digital BCP checklists
Create powerful workflows by integrating your existing systems and software
Gain greater visibility and transparency with real-time reporting

Take advantage of our comprehensive features to transform your organization’s capabilities towards operations excellence.

FAQs About Business Continuity Plans

What’s the difference between business continuity plan vs. disaster recovery plan.

The main difference between a business continuity plan and a disaster recovery plan is that the former encompasses the latter—that is, business continuity planning includes disaster recovery planning. ISO 22301:2019 is the international standard for Business Continuity Management (BCM) systems , and it outlines how specific plans for disaster recovery, incident preparedness, and emergency response may be needed rather than just one large plan for business continuity.

How often should business continuity plans be tested?

A business continuity plan should be tested at least every 6 months to verify the BCP’s effectiveness. Frequent testing can also allow the discovery of gaps and potential issues. This will help the organization update protocols and strategies accordingly.

What role does technology play in a BCP?

Technology helps ensure a BCP’s critical data is backed up and can be quickly restored, maintaining reliable communication platforms for ongoing contact during disruptions, and enabling remote work capabilities to keep operations running smoothly. Automated monitoring tools help detect and respond to threats in real-time, enhancing overall resilience. Additionally, cloud services provide accessibility to applications and data from any location, ensuring business continuity.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when creating a BCP?

Common mistakes to avoid when creating a BCP include neglecting to involve all relevant departments and stakeholders, failing to regularly update and test the plan, and not considering a wide range of potential risks. Additionally, overlooking the importance of clear communication and training for employees can lead to confusion and inefficiency during a disruption. Ensuring comprehensive coverage, regular maintenance, and thorough training can help avoid these pitfalls.

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ISO 22301 Business Continuity Simplified: Fortify Your Business Against Disruption

By Andy Marker | June 22, 2020 (updated September 15, 2022)

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In this article, you’ll find expert tips and implementation guides, and you'll learn how ISO 22301 can buffer your business against disasters.

Included on this page, you’ll find an International Standards Organization (ISO) 22301 audit checklist template , a simplified ISO 22301 cheat-sheet , and an ISO 22301 self-assessment checklist , as well as examples of ISO 22301 in action and an ISO 22301 quick-start guide .

What Is ISO 22301?

ISO 22301 is a global standard for business continuity planning requirements to help organizations protect themselves against disruptions. The most current version is 22301:2019, Security and resilience - Business continuity management systems - Requirements.

The requirements in ISO 22301 address disruptive incidents that can be natural or human-made, widespread or local, intentional or unintentional, such as a snowstorm, a broken water main, an epidemic, a data breach, or a phishing attack. Large or small, for- and nonprofit organizations alike can use ISO 22301.

The Business Manager’s Quick-Start Guide to ISO 22301

The ISO 22301 standard can provide benefits for your business continuity planning, even if your organization chooses not to pursue certification, or the review process that confirms your business continuity system meets all ISO 22301 requirements.

"Certification is nice, but not required,” says Mart Rovers of InterProm. “First, seek compliance. That way, you know that your business continuity management practices are in better shape." You can start to create a solid business continuity plan with just a few simple steps, which you can also download as this ISO 22301 Quick-Start Guide .

Check If You Already Have Continuity Plans: Find out if your organization already has business continuity plans. Search through your document management system and ask management or long-time employees. Organizations sometimes create and quickly forget about resources, or store responses locally in an informal system. As Andrew Nichols of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center suggests, if your organization already implements other ISO standards, such as ISO 9001 or ISO 27000, you can leverage some of the common requirement elements for your 22301 plan.
Identify Missing Components: Conduct a gap analysis of existing policies and processes to see what business continuity resources you need. According to Mart Rovers, one way to conduct a self-assessment is to copy into a spreadsheet each phrase of the ISO 22301 standard that contains the word "shall." Then, determine gaps between your company and the standard. "Use the standard as your guide to establishing a coherent set of practices to address business continuity management for your organization," says Rovers. You can also use Smartsheet's ISO 22301 Self-Assessment Checklist and ISO 22301 Simplified Cheatsheet for your gap analysis.
Keep It Simple: Having binders full of perfectly formatted procedures won’t help in an emergency. Create easy-to-follow guidelines and checklists and, more importantly, build "muscle memory" in your employees through training and drills. That way, in a panic, people understand what to do without having to be told.
Make Your Plan a Living Document: Ticking off items on an audit checklist doesn't mean you’re prepared. Frequently read, revise, and practice your plan to keep it relevant and to train new staff.

Communicate Your Plan to Staff and Other Stakeholders: Even the most well-written plan is useless if the people who can benefit from it don't know about it. Inform everyone covered by the plan that it exists, including your supply chain and other outside stakeholders.

ISO 22301 Requirements

The ISO 22301 standard offers a framework for planning, testing, and monitoring a business continuity management system (BCMS). The ISO 22301 document contains 10 sections, which introduce the standard and definitions, as well as actionable requirements of the standard.

As with other ISO requirement documents, ISO 22301 describes only what organizations must do to reach minimum proficiency — it does not prescribe how to achieve these standards. Each organization must consider its distinct conditions and obligations to find the best way to follow the requirements.

Here is an overview of the clauses in ISO 22301 that impact an organization most:

Clause 4, Context: Your organization must understand what it is, what it does, and what outputs and processes it must sustain. You must also determine who has a stake in the continuity of your operations — in other words, the interested parties. For example, customers have a stake in your organization continuing to function.
Clause 5, Leadership: Few organizational initiatives thrive without the sustained support and championship of top management. Management must commit to a business continuity plan and make available any resources — human, financial, or otherwise — to ensure its success.
Clause 6, Planning: To plan for sustainability, you must understand what disruptions could potentially occur and how these incidents affect the business — in other words, potential risks and their impact. Set measurable business continuity objectives to guarantee the minimum viable products or services, as well as compliance with any legal or regulatory requirements.
Clause 7, Support: No program can advance without resources and support. Decide what personnel, roles, and teams you need for threat response and how you can best enhance their effectiveness. Create internal and external communication procedures for reference, and communicate the continuity plan to all necessary parties before and during a crisis. Establish a document management system for key continuity documents, such as procedures.
Clause 8, Operation: Conduct your risk assessment and business impact analysis , and plan your disruption recovery approach. Implement the recovery plan with detailed procedures, and test it regularly to verify that it works. Make sure people can find the procedures (and other documents) they need, and revise your plan as necessary.
Clause 9, Evaluation: Establish a process to regularly measure and assess your continuity policies and procedures and their execution. Review and revise your plan and documents to ensure they are effective and relevant
Clause 10, Improvement: Seek continual improvement in all functional and operational areas, including through periodic management reviews. Improvements in day-to-day activities help bolster the organization in times of disruption. When processes veer from the standard or fail to conform with ISO and quality management standards, implement corrective action.

Key Definitions Related to ISO 22301

Some of the following key terms and concepts originate with ISO, some with ISO 22301, and some with business continuity and risk management:

Context: The purpose and character of the organization and the environment in which it operates. This includes internal and external influences that shape the business continuity management system.
Disruptive Incident: A disruptive incident is an event that stops or slows the everyday work of an organization. Examples of disruptive incidents include earthquakes, internet stoppages, broken fans in a data center, or food poisoning in a cafeteria.
Interested Parties: Interested parties are stakeholders in the successful operation and outcomes of your business continuity plan. They can include customers, employees, suppliers, or regulatory officials.
Leadership: In ISO 22301, leadership refers to top management or the person or people who run the organization and champion the business continuity effort.
Maximum Acceptable Outage (MAO): The length of time an activity or process can be unavailable or ineffective before the health and survival of the organization are threatened.
Minimum Business Continuity Objective (MBCO) : The lowest level of products or services that is acceptable for a business to offer during a disruption.
Recovery Timeframe Objectives (RTO): This refers to the prioritization of key activities and the timing that makes those activities operational.

Benefits of ISO 22301 and Business Continuity Management System

If teams are already overwhelmed with their workload, they may not like to think about disasters. Furthermore, organizations might think that ISO standards include difficult jargon and that pursuing a continuity plan adds unnecessary work. However, management systems practitioners suggest that continuity preparations produce substantial gains.

“I think it's a truism that many organizations can benefit from the principles and some of the practices of resiliency and contingency planning,” says Andrew Nichols, Quality Program Manager at the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center .

As an example of the benefits that risk analysis and preparation can yield, Nichols relates his experience of visiting a small northeastern town during a widespread winter power outage. The whole town was closed, with the exception of one restaurant that had a generator.

“They had a line of people out the door every mealtime because nowhere else was capable,” Nichols remembers. “Somebody had the foresight to think about the loss of power. And that organization cleaned up financially because they were able to provide what the customers needed.”

Consider these specific benefits to using ISO 22301 business continuity planning:

Protect against and recover from disruptive incidents.
Identify and control current and future threats.
Improve your risk management planning efforts.
Prevent large-scale damage.
Become proactive in preventing problems and recovering from incidents, rather than reactive to damage and disruption.
Reduce downtime and increase recovery time.
Keep important activities running during disruption.
Deliver quality products consistently.
Provide dependable service.
Prove you’re a reputable supplier.
Prove your resilience to all stakeholders.

Experts also assert that ISO 22301 can be a simple and effective continuity tool. “All these ISO standards, they’re like hidden gems because of how fast they can get you up to speed without having to reinvent the wheel,” says Mart Rovers, President of IT consulting firm InterProm .

“I cannot emphasize enough how within reach this standard is. Anytime people hear the word ‘ISO,’ they think, ‘Oh, that's for large organizations. Oh, that's way too formal. It's too much. It's overkill.’ I understand where this is coming from because the word ‘standard’ itself is scary for many organizations. However, the size of organization really doesn't matter. The things you should be doing in ISO 22301, you can do at a smaller scale,” says Rovers.

Some also hesitate at the thought of certification. Both Nichols and Rovers stress that certification is not necessary for every enterprise. Although certification may be a condition of doing business for some companies, those who don’t need certification can still gain advantages from following ISO 22301.

In weighing the pros and cons of ISO certification, Rovers suggests buying a copy of ISO 22301 , and then copying and pasting each sentence that contains the word “shall” into a spreadsheet (these sentences represent the requirements you must follow). From the spreadsheet, consider whether full ISO adoption and certification are too complicated for your organization. Regardless of your decision, you can always use the spreadsheet to conduct a self-audit.

ISO 22301 in Action

The following image provides a small sample of the possible outcomes to business continuity management.

How a Management System Helps Business Continuity

For those familiar with other ISO standards, the management system component of ISO 22301 might be a new concept. Rovers describes management systems as follows:

“The best way to explain a management system is to imagine opening up an old watch. It has these spinning wheels, these gears. In the case of an ISO standard, you're looking at a number of requirements to put that watch together with all these spinning wheels. That watch is a coherent system. You take out one of those gears, and then the watch fails.

“A management system for continuity follows the same idea — every requirement that the standard asks for represents one of those gears. And every requirement serves a distinct purpose (otherwise, it would not be a requirement). If you don't meet a particular requirement, the watch, so to speak, may not function as it could or should. These ISO requirements are not just there to keep you busy.”

ISO 22301 and PDCA

Each segment of the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) cycle for continuous improvement corresponds to at least one ISO 22301 clause. Organizations can use ISO 22301 to test continuity procedures, review outcomes, and implement updates or fix problems in a continuous cycle that leads to an increasingly resilient business continuity system.

ISO 22301 and Maturity Models

A maturity model measures an organization’s ability to pursue continuous improvement in key areas. ISO 22301 does not have a maturity model.

As Rovers explains, “It was never the intent of ISO 22301 to be a maturity model. You either meet all the requirements of the standard, or you don’t. You could say that by not meeting the requirements of the standard, you’re not mature. Or better said, your business continuity management practices are not mature.”

BCM Lifecycle ISO 22301

The business continuity management (BCM) lifecycle represents industry best practices and some of the core requirements of ISO 22301. These practices offer a solid foundation for resilience, while offering flexibility to adapt to changes in the organization.

Guided by leadership, these are the key activities for the lifecycle:

Conduct a business impact analysis and risk assessment.
Establish a business continuity strategy.
Establish and implement business continuity procedures.
Exercise and test the procedures regularly before a disruption occurs.

ISO 22301 Audit Checklist Template (Excel)

Use this detailed checklist to determine if your business continuity plan aligns with ISO 22301 standards. You can use the template whether you’re applying for certification or simply pursuing a continuity management plan.

Download ISO 22301 Audit Checklist Template

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ISO 22301 Self-Assessment Checklist

This self-assessment checklist is divided into sections that correspond to clauses in ISO 22301. Use it to confirm whether your business continuity system meets the requirements for leadership, planning, support, operation, performance evaluation, and continual improvement.

Download ISO 22301 Self-Assessment Checklist Template

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ISO 22301 Implementation Guide

This guide states the essential information from ISO 22301 in plain English. For best results, read it with the full standard, which is currently available for free online to support the COVID-19 response.

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ISO 22301 Simplified Cheat-Sheet

Use this simplified cheat-sheet to understand the basic elements of creating a business continuity plan. The template walks you through the process of determining critical aspects of your organization, writing the recovery plan, and exercising the plan to ensure proficiency.

Download ISO 22301 Simplified Cheat-Sheet Template

ISO 22301 Business Continuity Policy Template

A business continuity policy describes the processes and procedures an organization needs in order to function well daily, including in times of disruption and crisis. This policy template includes space for BCMS objectives, a leadership description, a policy outline, and any certification details.

Download ISO 22301 Business Continuity Policy Template

ISO 22301 Business Continuity Template

ISO 22301 Business Continuity Plan Template

Use this template to create a business continuity plan. Describe the results of your risk analysis and business impact analysis, detail your disaster recovery and continuity procedures, and list key contacts and important assets.

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ISO 22301 Business Continuity Sample

The Community Nonprofit Center of New York made available this business continuity template to support the response to coronavirus. Find space to detail responses to minimal and critical emergencies, a risk matrix template, and lists for information about insurance, critical assets, and responses to disruptive events.

For other most useful free, downloadable business continuity plan (BCP) templates please read our "Free Business Continuity Plan Templates" article.

Disaster Recovery Plan Templates

After you perform a risk analysis and business impact analysis, consider writing a disaster recovery plan. Disaster recovery plan templates , available in different formats, provide an easy-to-use structure for documenting continuity plans. Download templates specialized for IT, payroll, small businesses, and more.

To learn about the difference between recovery plans and continuity plans, visit our "Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Their Differences and How They Work Together" article.

ISO 22301 Versus ISO 27301

ISO 27301 provides requirements that organizations use to ensure their information and communications technology (ICT) continuity, security, and readiness to survive a disruption. The standard is often staged with ISO 22301 because both are based on similar management system approaches.

The full name of this standard is ISO 27301 - Information Technology - Security Techniques . Originally published in 2011, it is soon to be revised.

“Both [ISO 27301 and ISO 22301] ask for top management involvement and commitment, both ask that you have the right resources, that you have documentation management, that you do performance evaluations, and that you make improvements,” explains Rovers.

They differ in the focus of the risk assessment: ISO 27001 addresses security, whereas ISO 22301 addresses business continuity. “Each area has different risks, but the approach to the risk management assessment and mitigation follows the same steps. There's enormous overlap.”

IT security continuity has significant relevance in the remote work environment. For example, while using your work laptop at home or signed into the work network, what happens when someone innocently plugs in a thumb drive that infects your laptop and corrupts the network? Both ISO 22301 and ISO 27001 work together to prevent such incidents and mitigate problems that occur.

For additional resources, visit " Free ISO 27001 Checklists and Templates ."

General Requirements Across Management System Standards

Some ISO requirements are commonly stated across the management system standards, which include ISO 22301; ISO 9001 , Quality Management; ISO 20000, IT Service Management; and ISO 27001, Information Security. Examples of common requirements include establishing objectives for the business continuity management system as appropriate to the organization, obtaining management’s commitment to supporting the system, implementing a documentation management system, conducting internal audits, and pursuing continual improvement. This functional overlap enables organizations to undertake combined audits for these standards.

Historical Foundations of ISO 22301

The concept of business continuity was borne out of the IT boom of the 1980s and 1990s. Public and private organizations realized the need to ensure continuity of service and key supplies and to mitigate the effects of disruptive events. The first formal standard reflecting these concerns was the United Kingdom’s British Standard (also known as BS) 25999, which introduced the management system concept to the business continuity discipline.

In 2012, the global standards body ISO released ISO 22301:2012 as the first international standard for business continuity. Based on the contributions and comments of continuity professionals from assorted industries in over 60 countries, ISO 22301 superseded BS 25999.

ISO’s consensus-based standards, such as 22301, cover practices and industries ranging from quality management, IT service, and food safety to environmental safety and information security. ISO standards aim to increase the quality and safety of many products and services, including most common household items, appliances, and cars. Although large enterprises and manufacturers usually follow ISO requirements and guidelines, organizations of all sizes and types can benefit from ISO principles.

For ISO 22301, the standard provides a consistent BCMS framework and a universal language among organizations for communicating about continuity and aligning processes.

When they get certified in ISO 22301 and other ISO standards, organizations can demonstrate to management, legislators, regulators, customers, and other stakeholders that they follow good practices. For ISO certification, organizations need third-party verification that they comply with all requirements of a standard.

“Certification shows you have some level of competence,” explains Rovers. “It shows you take the standard seriously. For organizations buying your goods or services, it can be a compelling reason to choose you.”

Guidance Documents for ISO 22301

For in-depth discussions of aspects of the 22301 standard, ISO offers a series of guidance documents. To those considering pursuing ISO 22301 certification, these documents provide additional insight:

ISO 22313 - Security and resilience — Business continuity management systems — Guidance on the use of ISO 22301
ISO 22316 - Security and resilience — Organizational resilience — Principles and attributes
ISO 22317 - Societal security — Business continuity management systems — Guidelines for business impact analysis (BIA)
ISO 22318 - Societal security — Business continuity management systems — Guidelines for supply chain continuity
ISO 22330 - Security and resilience — Business continuity management systems — Guidelines for people aspects of business continuity
ISO 22331 - Security and resilience — Business continuity management systems — Guidelines for business continuity strategy

What Is the Latest Version of ISO 22301?

The requirement document ISO 22301:2019, Security and resilience - Business continuity management systems - Requirements , was released on October 31, 2019. The update from the original 2012 version reflects changes in management system approaches and clarifies specifications around clause 8.

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How to craft an effective business continuity plan

Let me take you back in time to the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Punk music was gaining popularity, and the Sex Pistols entered the punk rock scene with the force of a shooting star, capturing fans’ attention.

How To Craft An Effective Business Continuity Plan

But as quickly as they arrived, they quickly left the scene. When they broke up in 1978 after a period of internal conflicts, legal troubles, and their frontman’s imprisonment, fans were left both shocked and surprised.

Just like the Sex Pistols, plenty of companies experience rapid growth and success, only to face unexpected challenges and internal conflicts that result in their downfall.

In this article, we’ll draw inspiration from the Sex Pistols’ turbulent journey to explore the concept of business continuity planning (BCP). We’ll look at what a BCP is, why you need one and delve into the strategies and contingency measures that can help you maintain your rhythm and continuity, even when faced with the inevitable storms that can disrupt your operations.

What is a business continuity plan?

A business continuity plan describes how you’ll continue your business when disaster hits. It is a structured strategy outlining how your organization will maintain essential functions when disaster strikes, to ensure minimal downtime and guarantee that operations continue.

Why do you need a BCP in place?

The BCP is crucial and revolves around ensuring your resilience and ability to continue operating in the face of unexpected disruptions, such as natural disasters, cyberattacks, or other emergencies.

Let’s look at it a bit closer, and understand some of the key reasons to have a BCP better:

Minimize downtime

Protect revenue and reputation, compliance and legal requirements, resource allocation, maintain customer service, employee safety.

A BCP helps you minimize downtime. It does this by providing a structured approach to quickly recover and resume your critical business functions.

Example: You’re a retail company with an extensive online presence. If your website experiences a cyberattack that takes it offline, a well-prepared BCP outlines the steps to take to mitigate the attack, get your website back up in no time, and allow you to continue serving your customers.

No one likes disruptions as they result in revenue loss and can damage your reputation. A BCP helps you protect against financial losses and keep customer trust.

Example: You’re the owner of a restaurant chain with multiple locations and one of your branches has a food safety crisis. A BCP can guide you in managing the crisis, ensuring food safety compliance, and communicating effectively with customers to maintain trust in the brand and other locations.

Some industries, like the financial, and pharma industries, have regulatory requirements that mandate businesses to have BCPs in place. Failure to do so has legal and financial consequences.

Example: You’re the owner of a FinTech company. You are required by regulators to have robust BCPs to ensure customer data security and financial system stability.

When a crisis hits you need the right resources to get you back up and running. A BCP helps allocate resources effectively during a crisis, ensuring that personnel, equipment, and materials are used efficiently to address the most critical needs.

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Example: You’re a manufacturing company hit by a sudden supply chain disruption because the Suez Canal is blocked again. You use your BCP to allocate available resources to meet customer demands and minimize production delays.

When all hell breaks loose you want to make sure customer experience takes a minimum blow. A BCP outlines measures to maintain customer service and communication, so customers receive timely updates and support.

Example: You run an airline and there is a labor strike. Your BCP tells you how to manage customer inquiries, rebook affected passengers, and maintain a level of service.

Let’s not forget about the well-being of your employees. During a crisis, this is a top priority. A BCP includes procedures for evacuations, remote work arrangements, and employee support.

Example: There is a fire at your workplace. The BCP outlines evacuation routes, assembly points, and contact information for employees to report their safety status.

Business continuity planning: Steps for success

That’s a lot of reasons, right? Now that we addressed the necessity and urgency of having BCP, let’s look at 5 steps to creating a successful one:

Analyze your company
Assess the risk
Create the procedures
Get the word out
Iterate and improve

1. Analyze your company

In this phase you conduct an analysis to identify critical activities, determine which activities must continue, which can be temporarily paused, and which can operate at a reduced capacity.

You then assess the financial impact of disruptions. This involves asking yourself the question, “How long can I operate without generating revenue and incurring recovery costs?”

As this step covers your whole company, it’s important to get key stakeholders involved from the beginning.

2. Assess the risk

Now you have a good overview of your critical processes and the impact of disruption. At this point, pivot your attention to the risks they face, how well you can handle when things don’t work as usual, and how long you can manage if things go wrong.

The goal here is to understand what could go wrong and find ways to avoid, reduce, or transfer them. This assessment will help you strengthen your preparedness and resilience.

3. Create the procedures

Once you analyze and assess, you need to create procedures.

Develop detailed, step-by-step procedures to minimize risks to your organization’s people, operations, and assets. This can include changes to your operating model, such as using alternative suppliers or implementing remote work options.

4. Get the word out

A plan is just a plan and no one will know how to act if you don’t communicate.

This step is all about communication. Integrate the BCP into your operations, policies, and company culture, and train, test, and communicate with your employees.

And don’t forget that communication is not limited to your company only. Communicate with external stakeholders, customers, suppliers, and so forth.

5. Iterate and improve

Before implementing your BCP ensure its effectiveness.

Don’t worry there are plenty more options to test your BCP. Consider involving external stakeholders or vendors as it makes exercises more realistic. Frequently train those who are accountable for executing the BCP.

After experiencing a real incident or conducting a training exercise, update your plan to improve its ability to protect your business. Keep in mind that both your organization’s development and the circumstances you operate in change, so a regular review isn’t a luxury but a necessity.

How to structure your continuity plan

Now you have a high-level understanding, let’s look at how to structure your business continuity plan.

You can find a copy of the template I use here .

Make sure to include the following sections in your BCP:

Version history

Executive summary, functions and process prioritization, plan activation, governance and responsibilities, recovery plans, crisis communication plan, emergency location and contents, review and testing.

This section shows the revision history. It includes the version numbers of the changes made, by whom, when, and who approved the changes. The revision history allows anyone reading the BCP to understand how it has evolved over time.

The executive summary provides a brief summary of the key objectives, goals, scope, and applicability of the BCP.

This chapter outlines the critical functions and processes in scope of continuation in case of a disastrous event.

This section refers to the risk and business impact assessment outcome. Its aim is to set out what triggers the activation of the plan.

Governance and responsibilities talks about who has to act when the BCP is activated. It includes the members, a description of their responsibilities, contact details of the BCP team, and the chain of command during a crisis.

This section builds upon the business continuity strategies, specifically the one chosen when a disaster occurs. It describes the detailed recovery plans for each critical function, the procedures for restarting operations, resource allocation, and recovery time objectives (RTOs).

Here you cover the internal and external communication strategies. You also address employee awareness and training activities.

Now there is a good chance the disaster will require your crucial activities to temporarily continue at a different location. This section covers all details about the location and what needs to be available at the location.

The BCP is to be tested to reduce the risk of missing things or even worse failing. Here jot down the testing procedures and document results and lessons learned.

This section includes all appendices. Think about the following

Supporting documents, such as contact lists, maps, and technical specifications
References to external standards, guidelines, or regulations
Training programs for BCP team members
Review of insurance policies
Financial reserves and funding for recovery efforts
Procedures for keeping the BCP documentation up to date

Business continuity plan example

Earlier this year, the Koninklijke Nederlands Voetbal Bond (KNVB), which is the Royal Dutch Football Association, was hit by ransomware. The cyberattackers threatened to share personally identifiable information captured and the KNVB paid over one million euros to avoid this from happening.

What could have been done to mitigate the ransomware attack risk?

The Risk of the attack to succeed could have been mitigated with:

Regular data backups
Segmentation of networks
Intrusion detection systems

How to ensure business continuity in case of ransomware?

In response to the ransomware incident, and to allow for continued business as usual as soon as possible, steps could include:

Isolating affected systems
Activating backups
Notifying law enforcement
Engaging with a cybersecurity incident response team

Key takeaways

A business continuity plan (BCP) is like a safety net for your business when things go haywire. It helps you keep going, avoiding downtime, revenue loss, and reputation hits. On top of that, it’s a legal must in certain industries.

To make a solid BCP, just follow five steps: figure out what’s crucial for your business, spot the risks, plan how to bounce back, make sure everyone knows the plan, and keep fine-tuning it.

Structurally, your BCP should have sections like history, a quick guide, what’s most important, when to activate it, who’s in charge, the nitty-gritty recovery plans, how communication is done, where to go in a crisis, how to test the BCP works, and some extra info.

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Understanding the Essentials of a Business Continuity Plan

In the face of unforeseen disruptions, a robust business continuity plan (BCP) is essential to preserve the trust of stakeholders. If you are able to seamlessly continue operations even in the face of sudden challenges, stakeholders are reassured of the company’s resilience and commitment to their interests.

In this blog post, we offer a comprehensive guide to business continuity planning, how it can benefit organizations and share key insights into Developing and Maintaining an Effective business continuity plan.

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan (BCP) is an essential blueprint that outlines how a company will continue operating during an unplanned disruption in service. It’s more than just a reactive strategy; it’s a proactive measure to ensure that critical business functions can continue during and after a crisis. The purpose of a BCP is to provide a systematic approach to mitigate the potential impact of disruptions and maintain business operations at an acceptable predefined level.

The role of a BCP is crucial in maintaining operations during unforeseen events such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks, or any other incident that could interrupt business processes. By having a well-structured business continuity plan, organizations can:

Minimize downtime and ensure that essential functions remain operational
Protect the integrity of data and IT infrastructure
Maintain customer service and preserve stakeholder trust

Why is a Business Continuity Plan Important

Immediate Response : A BCP ensures that there is a predefined action plan, minimizing downtime and demonstrating control over the situation.

Transparent Communication : Keeping stakeholders informed during a crisis promotes transparency and maintains confidence in the company’s management.

Inclusive Planning : Involve stakeholders in the business continuity plan development process. Their insights can enhance the plan’s effectiveness and ensure their needs are addressed.

Consistency in Service : By prioritizing critical operations, a BCP helps maintain the quality and consistency of services or products, which is important for customer retention.

The absence of a business continuity plan can lead to a domino effect of negative outcomes, including a tarnished reputation and the potential loss of future business. Stakeholders remember how a company responds in a crisis, and a well-executed BCP can be the difference between a temporary setback and a long-term impact on the company’s image and relationships.

Elements of a Business Continuity Plan

When exploring various business continuity plan examples, certain common elements emerge as critical for their effectiveness. These elements serve as the backbone for a robust BCP plan, ensuring that businesses can maintain operations and protect their reputation during unforeseen events. Here are some of the key components found in successful BCP examples:

Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis : Identifying potential threats and assessing their impact on business operations is a foundational step in any BCP plan.

Crisis Communication Plan : A clear communication strategy is essential to manage stakeholder expectations and maintain trust.

Recovery Strategies : Detailed procedures for restoring business functions and services post-disruption are indispensable.

Employee Training and Awareness : Ensuring staff are well-prepared and knowledgeable about the BCP plan is crucial for its successful implementation.

Case studies of successful BCP implementations often highlight how these elements are tailored to fit specific business models and industries. For instance, a financial institution may focus heavily on data security and regulatory compliance within their BCP, while a manufacturing business might prioritize supply chain alternatives and on-site safety protocols. Regular testing and adjustment of these plans are also a common thread, underscoring the importance of adaptability and continuous improvement in business continuity planning.

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Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery

It’s important to distinguish between a business continuity plan and a disaster recovery plan. While both are vital, a BCP is broader and focuses on the continuity of the entire business, whereas a disaster recovery plan is more technical and concentrates on the recovery of specific operations, such as IT services. Understanding these differences helps organizations allocate resources effectively and ensures comprehensive preparedness for any type of disruption. Understanding when to activate a business continuity plan (BCP) versus a disaster recovery plan is crucial for maintaining operational resilience.

To ensure a comprehensive crisis management strategy, consider the following integration points:

Pre-emptive Planning : Establish clear triggers for when each plan is activated. For instance, a BCP might be initiated in the face of a supply chain disruption, while disaster recovery would come into play during a data breach or server failure.

Unified Communication : Both plans should have a coordinated communication strategy to inform stakeholders and employees about the status and steps being taken.

Regular Testing : Conduct joint drills that test both the BCP and disaster recovery plans to identify any gaps or overlaps in procedures.

Continuous Improvement : Use insights from drills and actual incidents to refine both plans, ensuring they evolve with the changing business landscape and technological advancements.

By integrating both plans, organizations can navigate crises with agility and confidence, minimizing downtime and protecting their reputation. Tools like Creately, with features such as real-time collaboration and visual project management, can help create and maintain these critical plans, ensuring that all stakeholders are on the same page and ready to act when necessary.

Crisis Communication Strategies within Business Continuity Planning

A business continuity plan (BCP) is not just about responding to the crisis at hand, but also about how you communicate during the disruptions and the decisions you make. Here are some best practices to ensure your crisis communication and decision-making processes effective:

Clear Communication Channels : Establish predefined channels for internal and external communication. This ensures that messages are consistent and reach all stakeholders promptly.

Designated Spokespersons : Identify individuals who are authorized to speak on behalf of the company during a crisis. This helps maintain a unified voice and message.

Factual Updates : Provide regular, factual updates to keep stakeholders informed. Avoid speculation and commit to transparency.

Decision-Making Protocols : Implement decision-making protocols that are clear and allow for swift action. This includes having a chain of command and predefined criteria for making critical decisions.

Training and Simulations : Regularly train your crisis management team and conduct simulations to prepare for potential scenarios. This ensures that when a crisis does occur, your team is ready to act effectively.

By integrating these best practices into your BCP plan, you can maintain control during a crisis, make informed decisions, and communicate effectively with all parties involved. Remember, the goal is to protect your company’s operations, reputation, and stakeholder relationships during unexpected events.

Utilizing Business Continuity Plan Templates and Tools

When it comes to developing a robust business continuity plan (BCP), leveraging templates can offer a significant head start. These templates serve as a foundational framework that can be customized to align with the specific requirements of your business. Here’s why using BCP templates is advantageous:

Efficiency in Development : BCP templates provide a structured approach, ensuring that all critical elements are considered without starting from scratch. This saves valuable time and resources.

Consistency Across the Organization : Templates help maintain a uniform response strategy, which is crucial for coherent and coordinated action during a crisis.

Ease of Customization : While templates offer a general outline, they are designed to be adaptable. This means you can tailor them to reflect your business’s unique operational processes, risk profile, and recovery objectives.

Incorporating features like crisis response directions into your BCP template is essential. With Creately you can,

Visualize these procedures on an infinite canvas, ensuring clarity and accessibility for all team members.
Easily modify the plan as your business evolves, with the drag-and-drop functionality, making regular testing and adjustment a seamless process.
Create a central repository of information by having docs, links and attachments in the notes panel of any shape in your diagram.

Key Insights for Developing and Maintaining an Effective Business Continuity Plan

A robust business continuity plan (BCP) is not a ‘set it and forget it’ document; it requires ongoing attention and refinement. Here’s why regular testing, updates, and staff training are non-negotiables in business continuity:

Financial Protection : By regularly testing your BCP, you can identify and rectify gaps that could otherwise lead to significant financial losses during a crisis. It’s not just about having a plan, but ensuring it works effectively when you need it most.

Reputational Safeguarding : Your company’s reputation is on the line when disaster strikes. A well-rehearsed BCP means your team can respond swiftly and competently, preserving stakeholder trust and customer loyalty.

Customization for Evolving Threats : The threat landscape is constantly changing. Regular BCP reviews allow you to tailor your plan to new types of risks, ensuring your business remains resilient against the unforeseen.

Empowered Employees : Training staff on the BCP turns theory into practice. When every team member knows their role in a crisis, response times improve, and confusion is minimized.

Remember, a BCP is a living document. It thrives on the feedback loop created by regular drills and updates, ensuring that when a crisis does occur, your business is prepared not just to survive, but to continue operations with minimal disruption.

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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Home > Learning Center > Business continuity planning (BCP)

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Business continuity planning (bcp), what is business continuity.

In an IT context, business continuity is the capability of your enterprise to stay online and deliver products and services during disruptive events, such as natural disasters, cyberattacks and communication failures.

The core of this concept is the business continuity plan — a defined strategy that includes every facet of your organization and details procedures for maintaining business availability.

Start with a business continuity plan

Business continuity management starts with planning how to maintain your critical functions (e.g., IT, sales and support) during and after a disruption.

A business continuity plan (BCP) should comprise the following element

1. Threat Analysis

The identification of potential disruptions, along with potential damage they can cause to affected resources. Examples include:

Threat	Potential impact
Power outage	Inability to access servers
Natural disaster	Critical infrastructure damage
Illness	Widespread employee absences
Cyberattack	Data theft and network downtime
Vendor error	Inability to execute integrated business functions

2. Role assignment

Every organization needs a well-defined chain of command and substitute plan to deal with absence of staff in a crisis scenario. Employees must be cross-trained on their responsibilities so as to be able to fill in for one another.

Internal departments (e.g., marketing, IT, human resources) should be broken down into teams based on their skills and responsibilities. Team leaders can then assign roles and duties to individuals according to your organization’s threat analysis.

3. Communications

A communications strategy details how information is disseminated immediately following and during a disruptive event, as well as after it has been resolved.

Your strategy should include:

Methods of communication (e.g., phone, email, text messages)
Established points of contact (e.g., managers, team leaders, human resources) responsible for communicating with employees
Means of contacting employee family members, media, government regulators, etc.

From electrical power to communications and data, every critical business component must have an adequate backup plan that includes:

Data backups to be stored in different locations. This prevents the destruction of both the original and backup copies at the same time. If necessary, offline copies should be kept as well.
Backup power sources, such as generators and inverters that are provisioned to deal with power outages.
Backup communications (e.g., mobile phones and text messaging to replace land lines) and backup services (e.g., cloud email services to replace on-premise servers).

Load balancing business continuity

Load balancing maintains business continuity by distributing incoming requests across multiple backend servers in your data center. This provides redundancy in the event of a server failure, ensuring continuous application uptime.

In contrast to the reactive measures used in failover and disaster recovery (described below) load balancing is a preventative measure. Health monitoring tracks server availability, ensuring accurate load distribution at all times—including during disruptive events.

Disaster recovery plan (DCP) – Your second line of defense

Even the most carefully thought out business continuity plan is never completely foolproof. Despite your best efforts, some disasters simply cannot be mitigated. A disaster recovery plan (DCP) is a second line of defense that enables you to bounce back from the worst disruptions with minimal damage.

As the name implies, a disaster recovery plan deals with the restoration of operations after a major disruption. It’s defined by two factors: RTO and RPO .

Recovery time objective (RTO) – The acceptable downtime for critical functions and components, i.e., the maximum time it should take to restore services. A different RTO should be assigned to each of your business components according to their importance (e.g., ten minutes for network servers, an hour for phone systems).
Recovery point objective (RPO) – The point to which your state of operations must be restored following a disruption. In relation to backup data, this is the oldest age and level of staleness it can have. For example, network servers updated hourly should have a maximum RPO of 59 minutes to avoid data loss.

Deciding on specific RTOs and RPOs helps clearly show the technical solutions needed to achieve your recovery goals. In most cases the decision is going to boil down to choosing the right failover solution.

See how Imperva Load Balancer can help you with business continuity planning.

Choosing the right failover solutions

Failover is the switching between primary and backup systems in the event of failure, outage or downtime. It’s the key component of your disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

A failover system should address both RTO and RPO goals by keeping backup infrastructure and data at the ready. Ideally, your failover solution should seamlessly kick in to insulate end users from any service degradation.

When choosing a solution, the two most important aspects to consider are its technological prowess and its service level agreement (SLA). The latter is often a reflection of the former.

For an IT organization charged with the business continuity of a website or web application, there are three failover options:

Hardware solutions – A separate set of servers, set up and maintained internally, are kept on-premise to come online in the event of failure. However, note that keeping such servers at the same location makes them potentially susceptible to being taken down by the same disaster/disturbance.
DNS services – DNS services are often used in conjunction with hardware solutions to redirect traffic to a backup server(s) at an external data center. A downside of this setup includes TTL-related delays that can prevent seamless disaster recovery. Additionally, managing both DNS and internal data center hardware failover solutions is time consuming and complicated.
On-edge services – On-edge failover is a managed solution operating from off-prem (e.g., from the CDN layer). Such solutions are more affordable and, most importantly, have no TTL reliance, resulting in near-instant failover that allows you to meet the most aggressive RTO goals.

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What is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)? Purpose, Template & Examples

Author Marie Laure Troadec
August 29, 2023

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Key Takeaways

1. A business continuity plan is an essential risk management tool that helps organizations proactively prepare for unexpected disruptions and events, ensuring the continuity of critical operations.

2. By identifying and assessing potential risks and threats to their operations, businesses can develop appropriate response strategies to prevent or minimize disruption during challenging times.

3. Businesses should avoid certain pitfalls to successfully implement their business continuity plan. These include a lack of employee engagement, an over-reliance on technology, and a failure to test their plans.

4. By proactively addressing these areas, businesses can increase the chances of successful implementation and execution of their business continuity plans.

Ensuring business continuity is a topic high on the agenda for most businesses and one that has become increasingly paramount in light of recent events: Few things have focused attention on the need to have a contingency plan more than the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential disruption caused by a pandemic, or indeed any other unforeseen event, to a business’s operations can have significant financial, legal, and reputational ramifications that can be mitigated or even prevented if appropriate measures are put in place.

This article delves into the essential elements of a business continuity plan (BCP) and provides valuable guidance on avoiding common pitfalls to help your business implement and execute a robust plan that safeguards your operations.

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan is a risk management strategy that a business implements to protect its operations in the face of an unexpected event or disruption such as a natural disaster, cyberattack, or technological failure. By anticipating and preparing for potential crises or unplanned eventualities, businesses can take preemptive measures to ensure they remain operational and maintain a sense of normalcy despite interruptions.

The business continuity planning process enables businesses to assess potential threats to their operations and identify vulnerabilities that could impact their ability to function effectively. Through the implementation of a business continuity plan, business leaders can swiftly respond to emergencies, minimizing any potential downtime and mitigating the negative effects on their operations. This proactive approach can help businesses navigate challenging situations with relative ease and resilience, ensuring minimal impact on their productivity and profits.

Main Elements of a Business Continuity Plan

A robust and effective business continuity plan will comprise the following key elements that facilitate business resilience and preparedness during uncertain times.

Business impact analysis
During this phase, a business will identify and assess potential risks and threats to their organization’s operations. A business impact analysis (BIA) assesses the potential consequences of disruptions in critical business functions. This allows businesses to prioritize resources, allocate budgets, and develop strategies to minimize downtime and facilitate recovery.
Recovery strategies
This step addresses the risks identified in the BIA by developing appropriate responses to prevent or minimize disruption. Recovery strategies outline the immediate actions required following an incident, those responsible for implementing them and coordinating the allocation of resources.
Plan development
The plan development phase involves developing the framework of the business continuity plan by establishing the relevant recovery teams, establishing communication channels, creating relocation plans, and gaining management buy-in.
Testing and maintenance
This phase involves training and testing the relevant teams and systems by conducting exercises to measure the effectiveness of the business continuity plan and identifying areas for improvement. Processes are also established for regularly reviewing and updating the business continuity plan to account for changes in technology, previous incidents, and evolving threats and risks.

Common Business Continuity Plan Pitfalls

To ensure the efficacy of their response during unexpected events or disruptions, organizations should be mindful of common mistakes encountered in the business continuity planning process.

An awareness of the following issues can help businesses avoid certain pitfalls which could hinder their efforts in this area:

1. Lack of employee engagement

The success of any business continuity plan hinges on an organization’s ability to execute it successfully as even the most comprehensive and detailed plan will fall flat if it is ineffective in real-world situations.

The successful execution of a business continuity plan goes beyond senior management. To ensure business continuity in times of trouble it is essential that those on the ground have also been briefed on contingency measures and are ready to step into action accordingly. Without adequate employee training and awareness, organizations run the risk of compromising critical business functions leading to further disruptions and losses.

By prioritizing employee engagement and involvement in the business continuity plan, organizations can strengthen and streamline their response efforts ensuring a robust and resilient response to potential disruptions, while fostering a culture of confidence and preparedness within their organization.

2. Overreliance on technology

While technological solutions play a crucial role and should be a feature of any robust business continuity plan, an overreliance on digital services and technical infrastructure can pose potential challenges for organizations.

Sole or heavy reliance on this area increases the risk of a single point of failure. This is especially pertinent at a time when cyberattacks and data breaches are prevalent creating vulnerabilities in a business’ technological systems, and thereby undermining the effectiveness of its business continuity plan. Unforeseen events such as natural disasters which can lead to infrastructure damage and power outages can also severely compromise an organization’s ability to function effectively during a crisis.

To counter these problems, organizations should incorporate a diverse range of technological and non-technological solutions into their business continuity plan, taking into account manual processes and alternatives that are not solely dependent on digital services. Data backup options should also be put in place to help businesses restore swift operations and minimize extended downtime.

3. Failure to test

Without proper testing, the effectiveness of a business continuity plan remains theoretical rather than proven in practice. Regular testing enables businesses to identify and address any gaps or limitations in their plan, avoiding the risk of critical business functions being left vulnerable in an actual crisis situation.

Through drills, real-life simulations, and tabletop exercises, organizations can learn from real-world incidents, gaining practical insight into the feasibility of their business continuity plans and identifying any areas that require improvement. Regular testing plays a crucial role in helping businesses to optimize their response strategies and ensure resilience and readiness in the face of difficult or unforeseen circumstances.

By proactively addressing and avoiding these common pitfalls, businesses can develop comprehensive business continuity plans that help to bolster their resilience, minimize disruptions, and ensure the continuity of their operations during challenging times.

BCP Template

The precise content of your BCP will depend on the nature of your business. However, below is a useful template for a typical business:

1. Introduction

Purpose: Outline the purpose of the BCP.
Scope: Specify which parts of the organization this BCP covers.
Assumptions: State any assumptions made during the BCP’s creation.

2. Business Continuity Policy

Outline the company’s policy regarding business continuity. This can include the company’s commitment to employee safety, client service, data protection, etc.

3. Roles and Responsibilities

List the key personnel responsible for executing the BCP:

Business Continuity Manager/Coordinator
Crisis Communication Team
Emergency Response Team
IT Recovery Team
Employee Assistance Team

4. Risk Assessment

Identify potential risks and threats:

Natural disasters
Technological failures
Security breaches

5. Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

Identify the potential impacts of each threat:

Financial impacts
Reputational impacts
Operational impacts
Legal/Regulatory impacts

6. Business Continuity Strategies

Outline strategies for:

Data backup and recovery
Alternate work locations
Communication protocols
Supply chain management

7. Incident Response Plan

Details the immediate actions to be taken following an incident:

Alert and notification procedures
Evacuation procedures
Safety checks

8. Recovery Plans

For each critical department/function, provide a detailed plan on how to resume operations:

IT systems recovery
Resumption of critical business functions
Communication with stakeholders

9. Training and Testing

Outline how the plan will be tested and how often, as well as any training programs for employees:

Tabletop exercises
Full-scale drills
Employee training sessions

10. Maintenance and Review

Describe how the plan will be kept current:

Regularly scheduled reviews
Updates following any changes in the business environment or operations
Feedback loop from testing

11. Communication Protocols

Specify how communication will be maintained:

Emergency contact lists
Communication methods (phone, email, etc.)
External communication (with media, stakeholders, etc.)

12. Appendices

Resource lists
Vendor contacts
Floor plans
Backup data locations

Business Continuity Plan Examples

If you are looking for some other examples of well-designed BCPs and BCP templates, check out the following:

Durham County Council’s BCP
Chisholm & Winch (UK Construction Company)
Ready (US Government Disaster Response Resource).

Developing and implementing business continuity plans

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Contact us today to learn how we can support your business continuity efforts and provide the stability and peace of mind you need in an ever-changing world.

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Business continuity and disaster recovery plans are risk management strategies that businesses rely on to prepare for unexpected incidents. While the terms are closely related, there are some key differences worth considering when choosing which is right for you:

Business continuity plan (BCP): A BCP is a detailed plan that outlines the steps an organization will take to return to normal business functions in the event of a disaster. Where other types of plans might focus on one specific aspect of recovery and interruption prevention (such as a natural disaster or cyberattack), BCPs take a broad approach and aim to ensure an organization can face as broad a range of threats as possible.
Disaster recovery plan (DRP): More detailed in nature than BCPs, disaster recovery plans consist of contingency plans for how enterprises will specifically protect their IT systems and critical data during an interruption. Alongside BCPs, DR plans help businesses protect data and IT systems from many different disaster scenarios, such as massive outages, natural disasters, ransomware and malware attacks, and many others.
Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR): Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) can be approached together or separately depending on business needs. Recently, more and more businesses are moving towards practicing the two disciplines together, asking executives to collaborate on BC and DR practices rather than work in isolation. This has led to combining the two terms into one, BCDR , but the essential meaning of the two practices remains unchanged.

Regardless of how you choose to approach the development of BCDR at your organization, it’s worth noting how quickly the field is growing worldwide. As the results of bad BCDR like data loss and downtime become more and more expensive, many enterprises are adding to their existing investments. Last year, companies worldwide were poised to spend USD 219 billion on cybersecurity and solutions, a 12% increase from the year before according to a recent report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) (link resides outside ibm.com).

Why are business continuity and disaster recovery plans important?

Business continuity plans (BCPs) and disaster recovery plans (DRPs) help organizations prepare for a broad range of unplanned incidents. When deployed effectively, a good DR plan can help stakeholders better understand the risks to regular business functions that a particular threat may pose. Enterprises that don’t invest in business continuity disaster recovery (BCDR) are more likely to experience data loss, downtime, financial penalties and reputational damage due to unplanned incidents.

Here are some of the benefits that businesses who invest in business continuity and disaster recovery plans can expect:

Shortened downtime: When a disaster shuts down normal business operations, it can cost enterprises hundreds of millions of dollars to get back up and running again. High-profile cyberattacks are particularly damaging, frequently attracting unwanted attention and causing investors and customers to flee to competitors who advertise shorter downtimes. Implementing a strong BCDR plan can shorten your recovery timeframe regardless of the kind of disaster you face.
Lower financial risk: According to IBM’s recent Cost of Data Breach Report, the average cost of a data breach was USD 4.45 million in 2023—a 15% increase since 2020. Enterprises with strong business continuity plans have shown they can reduce those costs significantly by shortening downtimes and increasing customer and investor confidence.
Reduced penalties: Data breaches can result in large penalties when private customer information is leaked. Businesses that operate in the healthcare and personal finance space are at a higher risk because of the sensitivity of the data they handle. Having a strong business continuity strategy in place is imperative for businesses that operate in these sectors, helping keep the risk of heavy financial penalties relatively low.

How to build a business continuity disaster recovery plan

Business continuity disaster recovery (BCDR) planning is most effective when businesses take a separate but coordinated approach. While business continuity plans (BCPs) and disaster recovery plans (DRPs) are similar, there are important differences that make developing them separately advantageous:

Strong BCPs focus on tactics for keeping normal operations running before, during and immediately following a disaster.
DRPs tend to be more reactive, outlining ways to respond an incident and get everything back up and running smoothly.

Before we dive into how you can build effective BCPs and DRPs, let’s look at a couple of terms that are relevant to both:

Recovery time objective (RTO): RTO refers to the amount of time it takes to restore business processes after an unplanned incident. Establishing a reasonable RTO is one of the first things businesses need to do when they’re creating either a BCP or DRP.
Recovery point objective (RPO): Your business’ recovery point objective (RPO) is the amount of data it can afford to lose in a disaster and still recover. Since data protection is a core capability of many modern enterprises, some constantly copy data to a remote data center to ensure continuity in case of a massive breach. Others set a tolerable RPO of a few minutes (or even hours) for business data to be recovered from a backup system and know they will be able to recover from whatever was lost during that time.

How to build a business continuity plan (BCP)

While each business will have slightly different requirements when it comes to planning for business continuity, there are four widely used steps that yield strong results regardless of size or industry.

1. Run a business impact analysis

Business impact analysis (BIA) helps organizations better understand the various threats they face. Strong BIA includes creating robust descriptions of all potential threats and any vulnerabilities they might expose. Also, the BIA estimates the likelihood of each event so the organization can prioritize them accordingly.

2. Create potential responses

For each threat you identify in your BIA, you’ll need to develop a response for your business. Different threats require different strategies, so for each disaster you might face it’s good to create a detailed plan for how you could potentially recover.

3. Assign roles and responsibilities

The next step is to figure out what’s required of everyone on your disaster recovery team in the event of a disaster. This step must document expectations and consider how individuals will communicate during an unplanned incident. Remember, many threats shut down key communication capabilities like cellular and Wi-Fi networks, so it’s wise to have communication fallback procedures you can rely on.

4. Rehearse and revise your plan

For each threat you’ve prepared for, you’ll need to constantly practice and refine BCDR plans until they are operating smoothly. Rehearse as realistic a scenario as you can without putting anyone at actual risk so team members can build confidence and discover how they are likely to perform in the event of an interruption to business continuity.

How to build a disaster recovery plan (DRP)

Like BCPs, DRPs identify key roles and responsibilities and must be constantly tested and refined to be effective. Here is a widely used four-step process for creating DRPs.

1. Run a business impact analysis

Like your BCP, your DRP begins with a careful assessment of each threat your company could face and what its implications could be. Consider the damage each potential threat could cause and the likelihood of it interrupting your daily business operations. Additional considerations could include loss of revenue, downtime, cost of reputational repair (public relations) and loss of customers and investors due to bad press.

2. Inventory your assets

Effective DRPs require you to know exactly what your enterprise owns. Regularly perform these inventories so you can easily identify hardware, software, IT infrastructure and anything else your organization relies on for critical business functions. You can use the following labels to categorize each asset and prioritize its protection—critical, important and unimportant.

Critical: Label assets critical if you depend on them for your normal business operations.
Important: Give this label to anything you use at least once a day and, if disrupted, would impact your critical operations (but not shut them down entirely).
Unimportant: These are the assets your business owns but uses infrequently enough to make them unessential for normal operations.

Like in your BCP, you’ll need to describe responsibilities and ensure your team members have what they need to perform them. Here are some widely used roles and responsibilities to consider:

Incident reporter: Someone who maintains contact information for relevant parties and communicates with business leaders and stakeholders when disruptive events occur.
DRP supervisor: Someone who ensures team members perform the tasks they’ve been assigned during an incident.
Asset manager: Someone whose job it is to secure and protect critical assets when a disaster strikes.

4. Rehearse your plan

Just like with your BCP, you’ll need to constantly practice and update your DRP for it to be effective. Practice regularly and update your documents according to any meaningful changes that need to be made. For example, if your company acquires a new asset after your DRP has been formed, you’ll need to incorporate it into your plan going forward or it won’t be protected when disaster strikes.

Examples of strong business continuity and disaster recovery plans

Whether you need a business continuity plan (BCP), a disaster recovery plan (DRP), or both working together or separately, it can help to look at how other businesses have put plans in place to boost their preparedness. Here are a few examples of plans that have helped businesses with both BC and DR preparation.

Crisis management plan: A good crisis management plan could be part of either business continuity or disaster recovery planning. Crisis management plans are detailed documents that outline how you’ll manage a specific threat. They provide detailed instructions on how an organization will respond to a specific kind of crisis, such as a power outage, cybercrime or natural disaster; specifically, how they’ll deal with the hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute pressures while the event is unfolding. Many of the steps, roles and responsibilities required in business continuity and disaster recovery planning are relevant to good crisis management plans.
Communications plan: Communications plans (or comms plans) equally apply to business continuity and disaster recovery efforts. They outline how your organization will specifically address PR concerns during an unplanned incident. To build a good comms plan, business leaders typically coordinate with communications specialists to formulate their communications plans. Some have specific plans in place for disasters that are deemed both likely and severe , so they know exactly how they’ll respond.
Network recovery plan: Network recovery plans help organizations recover interruptions of network services, including internet access, cellular data, local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). Network recovery plans are typically broad in scope since they focus on a basic and essential need—communication—and should be considered more on the side of business continuity than disaster recovery. Given the importance of many networked services to business operations, network recovery plans focus on the steps needed to restore services quickly and effectively after an interruption.
Data center recovery plan: A data center recovery plan is more likely to be included in a BCP than a DRP because of its focus on data security and threats to IT infrastructure. Some common threats to data backup include overstretched personnel, cyberattacks, power outages and difficulty following compliance requirements.
Virtualized recovery plan: Like a data center plan, a virtualized recovery plan is more likely to be part of a BCP than a DRP because of a BCP’s focus on IT and data resources. Virtualized recovery plans rely on virtual machine (VM) instances that can swing into operation within a couple of minutes of an interruption. Virtual machines are representations/emulations of physical computers that provide critical application recovery through high availability (HA), or the ability of a system to operate continuously without failing.

Business continuity and disaster recovery solutions

Even a minor interruption can put your business at risk. IBM has a wide range of contingency plans and disaster recovery solutions to help prepare your business to face a variety of threats including cloud backup and disaster recovery capabilities and security and resiliency services.

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IDENTIFYING CRITICAL BUSINESS PROCESSES FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING

Oct 15, 2012

Business impact analyses (BIA) should be conducted in order to establish appropriate response priorities in business continuity plans . Identifying the implications of a sudden loss for each business unit can determine process dependencies required to maintain operations of critical business processes. The BIAs should be used to evaluate critical recovery time objectives (RTO) for each unit and establish a comprehensive understanding of core business needs.

The ability to identify and quantify which critical business processes that, when not functional, may damage a company’s reputation or ability to operate, is a critical stage in the business continuity planning process. Overall resilience capabilities should be prioritized to mitigate any interruption. Operational and process managers should explore and quantify the following aspects to initiate the BIA process:

Timing: Identify critical operational time periods when an interruption would have greater impact (seasonal, end of quarter, specific month, etc.). Priorities should be determined if an interruption during high-output timeframes creates amplified operational and financial impacts.

Likelihood Level: Indicate how likely each specific threat could occur, considering existing capabilities, mitigation measures, and history.

Duration: Identify the duration and point in time when an interruption would impair operational processes and have financial impact. Estimate the maximum allowable downtime for each specific business function: Typical durations may include:

Less or greater than 1 hour
Less or greater than 8 hours or a typical single shift
Greater than 24 hrs
Greater than 36 hours
Greater than 72 hours
Greater than one week
Greater than one month

Staffing minimums: Identify staffing level needs (including contractors or suppliers) to meet typical daily, as well as recovery time objectives.

Operational Impacts: Identify the effects associated with a business unit interruption, considering existing mitigation measures. These may include, but are not limited to:

Lost sales and income
Negative cash flow resulting from delayed sales or income
Increased expenses due to overtime, outsourcing or other operations that increase costs
Regulatory fines and legal implications
Contractual penalties or loss of contractual bonuses
Customer dissatisfaction or withdrawal
Delay of business plan execution or strategic initiatives

Recovery Time: Identify the time frame necessary to recover specific critical processes under existing capabilities and, if possible, potentially altered conditions.

Financial Impact: Determine and quantify impacts in financial terms considering existing mitigation measures. Critical functions that have the highest financial impacts should be prioritized in business continuity plans.

Within each business unit, additional business functions should be considered and evaluated. By identifying cross business unit dependencies, the need for integrated risk mitigation solutions can be highlighted and proactive measures taken. Access to these additional functional requirements may be necessary if operations are moved to offsite locations. A workflow analysis may prioritize those business functions and processes that must be recovered. Functions within each business unit may include, but are not limited to:

Supply and Trading
Personnel and Payroll
Accounts Payable
Environmental Health and Safety
Information technology

Adverse information technology (IT) conditions may affect numerous company departments, units and functions. IT components may include networks, servers, desktop and laptop computers and wireless devices. The ability to utilize both office productivity and enterprise-wide software may be essential to restore normal operations. Therefore, time critical recovery strategies for information technology, such as exercised data backup and restoration procedures, should be developed in order to limit the effects of interruptions across multiple business units.

If a business continuity incident affects two or more critical business processes, the incident has a greater potential for impact. Interoperable communication and coordination among departments must be exercised for a swift recovery. The effects of a multi-tiered business continuity event can extend beyond the facility borders to affect personnel, multiple critical business processes, vendors or suppliers, and customers. Utilizing business impact analyses can create effective business continuity plans, ensuring a faster state of recovery.

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Business Continuity

10 Business Continuity Best Practices For Success

Kevin Holland

July 6, 2024
Reading Time: 8 minutes

Key highlights

Using business continuity best practices is a good idea for organizations who want to maintain essential operations when disruption strikes.
PwC’s Global Crisis and Resilience Survey revealed that 96% of business leaders have experienced disruption in the past two years .
A third of organizations are not confident in their ability to respond to disruptions .
Business continuity best practices include risk assessments , a robust continuity strategy , clear roles and responsibilities , resilient IT systems , employee training , regular testing , plan updates , IT disaster recovery planning , strong communication channels, and annual plan reviews .

Table of Contents

Introduction

Every day, organizations face risks that can disrupt operations. Not just the big risks like severe weather, natural disasters, and pandemics – but also smaller but just as harmful and more likely risks like cyberattacks, IT failures, and transport failures that stop staff getting into work. If you want your business to survive when the unexpected happens, then the 10 business continuity best practices described in this blog will give you peace of mind.

Recent years have shown a rise in damaging events. According to PwC’s Global Crisis and Resilience Survey , 96% of business leaders experienced disruptions in the past two years, with 76% reporting medium to high impacts on operations. It’s no surprise that over 80% of executives prioritize organizational resilience. Are you in that 80%, or the 20% who don’t think it will happen to them?

A well-developed business continuity plan is crucial for organizations who want to keep their business operating. It provides a roadmap for responding and recovering from crises , minimizing downtime, and ensuring operational resilience.

What are the 10 business continuity best practices for success?

To achieve success, organizations should follow business continuity best practices. These include conducting risk assessments, developing a business continuity (BC) strategy, clarifying roles, ensuring resilient IT, prioritizing training, testing plans, updating them, establishing an IT disaster recovery plan, fostering communication channels, and reviewing plans annually. Read on to find out more.

1. Carry out a comprehensive risk assessment and business impact analysis.

The foundation for creating an effective business continuity plan (BCP) is to conduct a thorough assessment of risks to the business, followed by a business impact analysis to find out how much harm they could do. This process includes identifying all risks, analyzing their potential impact on operations, putting them in priority sequence, and designing mitigations for the highest impact and most likely risks. This helps to focus resources and effort where it can provide the biggest benefit.

The risk assessment should identify risks of all shapes and sizes, including threats like natural disasters, cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions, and loss of key staff. As well as listing the risks it’s best practice to record details including how likely the risk is to materialise, can it be prevented, and who might be impacted. A business impact analysis then evaluates the consequences of these risks on each business function, including financials, operations, reputation, and compliance.

2. Develop and implement a robust BC strategy

Developing a robust business continuity strategy requires a proactive mindset. The strategy should outlines steps to maintain essential functions at all times, including recovery objectives and required resources. Factors like risk tolerance, regulations, resources, and dependencies should be considered. Implementation of the strategy involves defining plans, communication protocols, resource allocation, and regular reviews for effectiveness against evolving threats and changes.

3. Assign Clear Roles and Responsibilities

Assigning clear roles and responsibilities is a key business continuity best practice, as this will help with smooth coordination and effective response when BC plans are activated.

Key roles in the business continuity best practices can include an emergency coordinator, a crisis management team, IT personnel for disaster recovery, communication coordinators, and department heads. These individuals ensure that critical decisions are made promptly and response efforts are coordinated effectively.

4. Ensure resilient IT systems and networks

IT systems and networks often experience failures. Resilient IT is crucial for uninterrupted business operations during disruptions. Redundancy can be achieved using designs like duplicate servers and network equipment, automated failover mechanisms, and event monitoring solutions. Implementing redundancy requires planning and investment in infrastructure. Using Cloud applications can be a very effective way to provide resilience and satisfy this critical aspect of business continuity best practices.

When resilience fails, well designed backup and recovery systems can help restore critical functions quickly and reduce downtime. Backup (secondary) data centers can be expensive to implement and maintain, but can ensure rapid return to operations after a failure.

No matter which solutions are used, organizations should assess critical functions, determine required redundancy levels based on recovery time objectives, and conduct regular testing for effectiveness and reliability.

5. Prioritize employee training and awareness programs

Prioritizing employee training and awareness programs is essential for ensuring continued operations. Employees play a critical role in implementing the BC plan and responding effectively to a crisis. By providing them with the necessary knowledge and skills, organizations can enhance operational resilience and minimize the impact of disruptions, including those caused by external service providers.

Key training and awareness areas in business continuity best practices include:

Familiarity with the BC plan : Employees should be familiar with the organization’s BC plan, including their roles and responsibilities in implementing it.
Emergency response procedures : Training employees on emergency response procedures, such as evacuation protocols, communication channels, and reporting mechanisms, ensures that they can respond promptly and safely during a crisis.
Technology and system usage : Employees should receive training on the appropriate use of technology systems and tools, including backup systems, remote access, and data security measures.
Crisis communication : Effective communication is crucial during a crisis. Training employees on crisis communication protocols, including how to deliver clear and timely messages to colleagues, customers, and other stakeholders, is essential.

Regular training sessions, drills, and simulations should be conducted to reinforce employee knowledge and skills. It is also important to promote a culture of awareness and preparedness, where employees understand the importance of BC and actively contribute to the organization’s resilience.

6. Regularly test and simulate the Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

Regularly testing and simulating the BCP is crucial to identify gaps, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. A variety of methods including tabletop exercises, walk-throughs, and simulations can be used to validate the plan’s effectiveness, readiness of teams, and IT recovery capabilities. Simulations help evaluate responses in different scenarios, train employees on their roles, and enhance overall response capabilities. Scheduled testing, reviews, and updates are vital to maintaining plan relevance amidst evolving threats and organizational changes., ensuring that all business units are prepared in case of a disaster.

7. Keep the plan updated with emerging threats and changes

Threats continually change. Keeping the BCP updated is crucial for addressing emerging threats and changes effectively. The business landscape evolves continuously, bringing new risks and challenges. Organizations must proactively review and update their plans to adapt.

Emerging threats like cyber threats or regulatory changes can disrupt continuity. By monitoring and integrating these threats into the plan, organizations can be well-prepared to respond if needed.

Regular updates should also reflect changes in operations, infrastructure, and personnel to maintain relevance and effectiveness. By staying updated, organizations can remain resilient and ensure operational continuity during disruptions.

8. Establish a detailed IT disaster recovery plan

An IT disaster recover y (DR) plan is a critical component of the overall business continuity strategy and is one of the essential business continuity best practices for any organization that relies on IT. A DR plan focuses on restoring IT infrastructure and operations after a crisis to ensure the continuity of business functions.

The IT disaster recovery plan should include key information such as:

Notification communication plan : A clear and efficient communication plan to notify relevant stakeholders about the disaster and its impact.
Staff relocation : Procedures for relocating IT staff to alternative facilities or remote locations to ensure the continuity of IT operations.
Alternate resources : Identification of alternate resources, such as backup systems, data centers, and hardware, to enable the swift recovery of IT functions.
Suppliers : Contact information for suppliers of IT equipment, software, and services to facilitate the procurement of necessary resources during the recovery process.
Inventory of technology hardware, software, and data : A comprehensive inventory of IT assets to ensure that all critical systems and data are accounted for during the recovery process.
Technical personnel : Contact information and roles of IT personnel responsible for executing the recovery plan and restoring IT functions.
Data backup plan : Procedures for backing up and recovering critical data to minimize data loss and ensure the integrity of business operations.
Priority list for recovery : A prioritized list of IT functions and systems based on their criticality to the organization’s operations, enabling a systematic recovery process.

Threats to cybersecurity

In today’s digital world, cybersecurity considerations have to be a key part of any disaster recovery plan. Systems can be more vulnerable to attack during execution of the plan, especially if the security of backup systems has not been maintained.

9. Foster strong communication channels inside and outside the organization

Effective communication channels are crucial for business continuity. Timely and accurate communication is essential during disruptions to coordinate response efforts, share critical information, and maintain stakeholder trust.

Internally, organizations should establish clear communication channels between departments and teams, ensuring access to updated contact information.

Externally, communication with partners, stakeholders, and external agencies enables collaboration during crises. Regular drills and training help employees respond effectively. Regularly reviewing and updating communication plans is vital for accuracy and relevance.

10. Review and reassess continuity plans

Regularly reviewing continuity plans is crucial to maintain their effectiveness and relevance. As organizations evolve and new risks emerge, plans need adjustments. A review should be held at least annually, after a plan invocation, or after a major change to the organization or IT systems. An annual review helps evaluate preparedness, identify gaps, and implement improvements. Involving key stakeholders ensures the plan aligns with current needs and capabilities.

Colorful icons with "FAQs" text for business continuity and risk management FAQ.

FAQ for business continuity best practices

In addition to the essential business continuity best practices described above, organizations can adopt additional strategies to enhance their resilience and ensure successful continuity efforts.

How important are risk assessments?

Risk assessment is vital for business continuity planning . IT’s also good practice for other aspects of running an operation. Risk management should be part of normal operations , not something that is only done occasionally.

What is in a comprehensive IT Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)?

A comprehensive DRP is crucial for enabling business continuity , focussing on restoring IT infrastructure and operations to maintain critical functions. Key components include:

Identifying critical IT systems.
Establishing recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).
Implementing backup systems and data strategies.
Designating technical personnel.
Detailing recovery procedures.
Conducting regular testing and updates for alignment with the organization’s operations.

In conclusion, implementing robust business continuity best practices is crucial for organizational resilience and success. From conducting thorough risk assessments to fostering open communication channels, each step plays a significant role in ensuring operational continuity during unforeseen events. By prioritizing employee training, maintaining resilient systems, and regularly testing continuity plans, businesses can mitigate risks and adapt to challenges effectively. Proactive planning and regular updates are key to staying ahead of emerging threats and changes in the business landscape. Embracing these practices fosters a culture of preparedness and ensures smoother navigation through disruptions.

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Legal Strategies for Business Continuity Through Succession Planning

Effective business succession planning relies on a thorough legal strategy that addresses key stakeholders, critical positions, ownership transfer, intellectual property protection, and tax implications to maintain business continuity and minimize risks. A thorough stakeholder analysis and position clarification form the foundation of a successful succession plan. A well-structured timeline with defined milestones guides the process, while identifying critical positions and talent pipelining facilitate a seamless handover. A buy-sell agreement and advisory board facilitate a smooth ownership transfer, and protecting intellectual property rights and managing tax implications and liabilities further safeguard business continuity. As you explore these vital elements, you'll discover a profound impact on your organization's long-term success.

Table of Contents

Identifying Key Stakeholders and Roles

Effective succession planning begins with the identification of key stakeholders and positions, as these individuals will be instrumental in driving the handover process and maintaining the continuity of the organization. A thorough stakeholder analysis is vital in identifying critical positions and the individuals who will assume these positions. This analysis involves evaluating the organization's internal and external stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, and partners, to determine their level of influence and interest in the succession process.

Position clarification is another fundamental aspect of identifying key stakeholders and positions. This involves defining the responsibilities and expectations associated with each position, preventing any ambiguity or overlap. By clarifying positions, organizations can avoid confusion and facilitate a seamless handover. A clear understanding of stakeholder interests and position expectations enables the development of effective succession strategies that meet the needs of the organization and its stakeholders. By prioritizing stakeholder analysis and position clarification, organizations can lay a solid foundation for a successful succession plan that maintains business continuity and sustainability.

Creating a Succession Timeline

When creating a succession timeline, it is vital to establish key milestones that mark significant events or deadlines in the succession planning process. These milestones may include critical dates for talent development, position shifts, and leadership assessments. By identifying these milestones, organizations can effectively plan and execute their succession strategies, securing a seamless transfer of knowledge and responsibilities.

Establishing Key Milestones

A key component of a successful succession planning strategy is the establishment of a clear timeline, which outlines specific milestones and deadlines for the development and handover of key positions. This timeline serves as a roadmap, guiding the succession planning process and facilitating a seamless shift. Establishing key milestones is vital in this process, as it enables the organization to track progress and make adjustments as needed.

Milestone assessment is a vital aspect of this process, as it involves evaluating the readiness of potential successors to take on key positions. This assessment should be based on specific criteria, such as skills, experience, and performance. Progress tracking is also imperative, as it allows the organization to monitor the development of potential successors and identify sectors that require additional support. By establishing clear milestones and tracking progress, organizations can guarantee a smooth shift of power and minimize disruptions to business operations. A well-structured timeline with defined milestones enables organizations to proactively manage succession planning, reducing the risk of leadership gaps and maintaining business continuity.

Identifying Critical Roles

Identifying critical positions is a fundamental step in creating a succession timeline, as it enables organizations to pinpoint key jobs that substantially impact business operations and require immediate attention in the succession planning process. This step involves a thorough risk assessment to identify positions that, if left vacant, would severely disrupt business continuity. By identifying critical positions, organizations can prioritize their succession planning efforts and allocate resources more effectively.

To achieve this, organizations should conduct an exhaustive review of their organizational structure, highlighting positions that are vital to their operational success. This review should consider factors such as revenue generation, customer relationships, and technical proficiency. Additionally, organizations should engage in talent pipelining, identifying and developing internal talent to fill future leadership positions. By doing so, organizations can guarantee that critical positions are filled with capable and competent individuals, minimizing the risk of business disruption. By prioritizing critical positions, organizations can create a robust succession timeline that safeguards business continuity and minimizes the risk of operational disruption.

Developing a Buy-Sell Agreement

When developing a buy-sell agreement, it is vital to carefully consider three key points. To begin with, defining triggering events, such as retirement or death, is necessary to establish the circumstances under which the agreement is activated. Additionally, establishing valuation methods and determining purchase terms are vital components that require careful consideration to facilitate a seamless handover.

Defining Triggering Events

Triggering events, such as death, disability, or retirement, serve as catalysts for the activation of a buy-sell agreement, necessitating a clear definition to facilitate a seamless handover of ownership. These events can have a significant impact on the business, leading to family disputes or business crises if not properly addressed. A well-defined triggering event can mitigate these risks and guarantee business continuity.

Triggering Event	Description	Impact on Business
Death of a key owner	Death of an owner or key employee	Disruption to business operations, potential family disputes
Disability of a key owner	Permanent disability of an owner or key employee	Loss of key skills, potential business crises
Retirement of a key owner	Retirement of an owner or key employee	Transfer of ownership, potential disruption to business operations
Dissolution of a partnership	Dissolution of a partnership or joint venture	Legal and financial implications for the business

Establishing Valuation Methods

Establishing a clear and objective valuation method is vital in a buy-sell agreement, as it determines the price at which shares can be transferred, facilitating a seamless shift of ownership. A well-structured valuation method ensures that the business is transferred at a fair price, minimizing potential disputes among shareholders.

To establish a robust valuation method, consider the following approaches:

Asset Appraisal : This method involves estimating the business's value based on its assets, such as property, equipment, and inventory.
Financial Modeling : This approach uses financial statements and projections to estimate the business's value based on its future cash flows.
Earnings Multiple Method : This method involves multiplying the business's earnings by a predetermined multiple to estimate its value.
Discounted Cash Flow Method : This approach estimates the business's value by discounting its projected future cash flows to their present value.

Determining Purchase Terms

Determining purchase terms is a critical component of a buy-sell agreement, as it outlines the specific conditions under which shareholders can buy or sell their shares, facilitating a smooth handover of ownership. This provision guarantees that the business remains stable and continues to operate without disruption, even in the event of a shareholder's departure.

When determining purchase terms, it is vital to examine the various purchase options available. These may include a cross-purchase agreement, where the remaining shareholders purchase the departing shareholder's shares, or a redemption agreement, where the company buys back the shares. The chosen option will depend on the specific needs and goals of the business.

In addition to purchase options, the payment structures must also be defined. This may include the method of payment, such as a lump sum or installment payments, and the timing of payments. Clear and concise language is vital to avoid misunderstandings and facilitate a seamless transfer of ownership. By carefully outlining the purchase terms, business owners can guarantee a smooth succession and maintain business continuity.

Establishing an Advisory Board

One key strategy for sustaining the long-term viability of an organization is to assemble a diverse group of specialists who can provide objective guidance and oversight, thereby forming a robust advisory board. This board composition is crucial in providing expert networking opportunities, facilitating access to valuable insights, and mitigating potential risks.

When establishing an advisory board, it is essential to consider the following key aspects:

Industry expertise : Recruit members with specialized knowledge and experience in relevant fields to provide informed guidance.
Diverse perspectives : Ensure the board comprises individuals with varied backgrounds, ages, and genders to foster innovative thinking and avoid groupthink.
Independence : Select members who can maintain objectivity and independence, unaffected by personal interests or biases.
Clear roles and responsibilities : Define specific roles, expectations, and communication channels to ensure seamless collaboration and decision-making.

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights

As organizations rely increasingly on innovative ideas and creative solutions to stay competitive, safeguarding intellectual property rights becomes a vital component of their long-term success. This involves implementing effective strategies to protect trademarks, patents, copyrights, and trade secrets from infringement. A thorough intellectual property protection plan should include trademark strategies, such as conducting thorough trademark searches and registering marks in relevant jurisdictions. It is also imperative to monitor for potential patent infringement and take prompt legal action when necessary.

Businesses should develop robust patent portfolios to prevent competitors from exploiting their innovations. Additionally, they should establish that employment contracts and non-disclosure agreements are in place to prevent misappropriation of trade secrets. By taking proactive measures to safeguard intellectual property rights, organizations can maintain their competitive edge and protect their most valuable assets. A well-planned succession strategy should prioritize intellectual property protection to guarantee the continued success of the business. By doing so, businesses can guarantee that their innovative ideas and creative solutions remain a key driver of their long-term success.

Designating a Transfer of Ownership

Establishing a clear plan for transferring ownership is critical to guaranteeing the continued success and stability of an organization, as it enables the seamless handover of leadership and authority to the next generation of leaders. A well-planned transfer of ownership ensures that the business continues to thrive, maintaining its competitive edge and preserving the family legacy.

When designating a transfer of ownership, it is essential to consider the following key factors:

Family involvement : Identify and develop the next generation of leaders within the family, ensuring a smooth transition and preservation of the family legacy.
Business partners : Consider the interests and roles of business partners, ensuring their involvement in the transfer process to maintain business continuity.
Leadership succession : Clearly define the leadership structure and roles, ensuring a seamless transition of authority and decision-making responsibilities.
Ownership structure : Determine the most suitable ownership structure, such as a family trust or limited liability company, to ensure the continued success and stability of the organization.

Managing Tax Implications and Liabilities

During the ownership transfer process, it is vital to manage tax implications and liabilities effectively to minimize financial burdens and guarantee a seamless handover. Failure to do so can lead to significant tax liabilities, penalties, and even legal disputes. To mitigate these risks, business owners should adopt a tax-efficient approach to succession planning, structuring the transfer of ownership in a way that minimizes tax liabilities. This may involve leveraging tax deductions, credits, and exemptions to reduce the tax burden. Additionally, liability shielding strategies should be employed to protect the business and its owners from potential legal claims. By implementing these measures, business owners can guarantee a smooth handover of ownership while minimizing financial and legal risks. A well-planned succession strategy can help maintain business continuity, preserve wealth, and protect the legacy of the business. By managing tax implications and liabilities effectively, business owners can guarantee a successful handover and secure the future of their business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can family members be involved in the business succession planning process?.

Family members can be involved in the business succession planning process, but it's vital to navigate complex family dynamics to guarantee a smooth handover and preserve the business legacy.

How Do I Ensure Business Continuity During a Sudden Owner Absence?

To guarantee business continuity during a sudden owner absence, establish Emergency Protocols outlining clear decision-making procedures and delegate authority to trusted personnel, while implementing Crisis Management strategies to mitigate operational disruptions and maintain stability.

What Happens if a Successor Is Not Ready to Take Over the Business?

If a successor is not ready to take over, a leadership vacuum can ensue, jeopardizing business continuity. Implementing emergency training programs can mitigate this risk by rapidly upskilling the designated successor, providing a smoother handover.

Can Business Succession Planning Strategies Be Used for Small Businesses?

Yes, business succession planning strategies can be applied to small businesses, focusing on tailored approaches for small operations, including simplified business valuation methods to ensure a seamless transition.

Are There Tax Benefits to Gifting Business Shares to Family Members?

Gifting business shares to family members can yield tax benefits, enhancing tax efficiency, but it's essential to weigh family dynamics, making a smooth transfer while minimizing tax liabilities and maximizing wealth preservation.

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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 ...
All about 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 plan (BCP) in 8 steps, with templates
Step 1: Establish an emergency preparedness team. Assign a team the responsibility for emergency preparedness. Select a few managers or an existing committee to take charge of the project. It's advisable to assign one person to lead the planning process.
What Is A Business Continuity Plan? [+ Template & Examples]
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 Planning
Learn how to create and test a business continuity plan with videos and resources from Ready.gov. The videos cover the six steps of the business continuity planning process and show examples of successful implementation.
Business Continuity Plan: Example and Tips
Step 1: Determine the risk profile through a self-assessment using the 4Ps framework—People, Processes, Profits, and Partnerships. Step 2: Identify key products, services, or functions. Step 3: Establish the business continuity plan objectives. Step 4: Evaluate the potential impact of disruptions to the business and its workers.
Business Continuity Planning: How To Create and Maintain BCPs
Step 3: Document business continuity plans. Based on the selected strategies and solutions, you'll then document your BCPs and make them available to key stakeholders. According to the ISO 22301:2019 standard on business continuity management systems requirements, BCPs should: Include specific immediate steps to be taken following a disruption.
How to Write a Business Continuity Plan
Here is an example of a BCP format: Business Name: Record the business name, which usually appears on the title page. Date: The day the BCP is completed and signed off. Purpose and Scope: This section describes the reason for and span of the plan. Business Impact Analysis: Add the results of the BIA to your plan.
ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management Made Easy
ISO 22301 Simplified Cheat-Sheet. Use this simplified cheat-sheet to understand the basic elements of creating a business continuity plan. The template walks you through the process of determining critical aspects of your organization, writing the recovery plan, and exercising the plan to ensure proficiency.
How to craft an effective business continuity plan
Create the procedures. Get the word out. Iterate and improve. 1. Analyze your company. In this phase you conduct an analysis to identify critical activities, determine which activities must continue, which can be temporarily paused, and which can operate at a reduced capacity.
Understanding the Essentials of a Business Continuity Plan
A business continuity plan is a document that outlines how a company can keep running during a crisis. It covers everything from backup systems, communication channels, emergency contacts, and recovery strategies. A good business continuity plan can help you avoid downtime, minimize losses, and protect your reputation. In this blog post, we'll show you how to create a business continuity plan ...
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 ...
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 ...
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PDF Creating a Business Continuity Plan
Business continuity planning is the process of identifying critical business functions of an organization, developing solutions to maintain those functions during a disruption, testing those solutions, and updating and revising solutions on a continuous cycle. The goal of business continuity planning is to enable critical business functions
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Planning (BCP & DRP)
In an IT context, business continuity is the capability of your enterprise to stay online and deliver products and services during disruptive events, such as natural disasters, cyberattacks and communication failures. The core of this concept is the business continuity plan — a defined strategy that includes every facet of your organization ...
What is a Business Continuity Plan? [+ Template & Examples]
The business continuity planning process enables businesses to assess potential threats to their operations and identify vulnerabilities that could impact their ability to function effectively. Through the implementation of a business continuity plan, business leaders can swiftly respond to emergencies, minimizing any potential downtime and ...
How to Create a Business Continuity Plan
Take these steps to create an effective business continuity plan. Form a business continuity management team. Write a mission statement that states the objectives of the plan. Conduct a business impact analysis to determine the potential risks to your company. Write the plan procedures and details about the required tools, infrastructure, and ...
Business continuity vs. disaster recovery: Which plan is right ...
Here is a widely used four-step process for creating DRPs. 1. Run a business impact analysis. ... Whether you need a business continuity plan (BCP), a disaster recovery plan (DRP), or both working together or separately, it can help to look at how other businesses have put plans in place to boost their preparedness. Here are a few examples of ...
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.
Business Continuity Plan: A Complete Guide
A business continuity plan (BCP) is a document that details how company operations will continue after an unforeseen service disruption. When carried out effectively, the plan enables an organization to respond swiftly and efficiently when unpredictable events occur. This comprehensive plan contains contingencies for every aspect of the business that the disruption might impact.
Identifying Critical Business Processes for Business Continuity Planning
The ability to identify and quantify which critical business processes that, when not functional, may damage a company's reputation or ability to operate, is a critical stage in the business continuity planning process. Overall resilience capabilities should be prioritized to mitigate any interruption. Operational and process managers should ...
PDF Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Template With Instructions and Example
business process. This may be used in its entirety, or it can be easily broken apart and distributed as separate documents to the appropriate individuals who need them. The book includes 3 parts: 1. A blank BCP Master template which you can copy and fill in to use as needed. 2. Instructions for Using, and Maintaining A Business Continuity Plan ...
PDF WHO guidance for business continuity planning
The process of business continuity planning begins by identifying the high impact risks to the WHO office, and assessing their potential consequences on functions ... • Business continuity planning white paper: description and framework • WHO HQ Geneva Business Recovery Green Pack 2014. • WHO Corporate Risk Management Policy, 2015.
10 Business Continuity Best Practices For Success
The foundation for creating an effective business continuity plan (BCP) is to conduct a thorough assessment of risks to the business, followed by a business impact analysis to find out how much harm they could do. This process includes identifying all risks, analyzing their potential impact on operations, putting them in priority sequence, and ...
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A business continuity plan is a written plan detailing instructions or procedures for maintaining operations in the event of major disruption. Business continuity plans can cover a variety of scenarios, ranging from natural disasters to cyber-attacks.
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Developing an exhaustive business continuity plan necessitates a thorough risk evaluation, which involves pinpointing potential vulnerabilities and threats that could disrupt business operations. This process is critical to identifying and mitigating potential risks that could impact the continuity of the business. A detailed risk assessment ...
Ownership Succession in Professional Practices
By understanding the intricacies of the organization and developing a robust succession plan, stakeholders can mitigate risks, maintain business continuity, and preserve the outgoing owner's legacy. As stakeholders navigate the complexities of ownership succession, a thorough understanding of the process is vital to achieving a successful handover.
Using Azure Automation to perform Azure Site Recovery post failover
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is a service that often comes to mind when adopting a business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) approach. In summary, ASR continuously replicates workloads running on physical and virtual machines (VMs) from a primary to a secondary site. ... For this demo, we're mostly interested in the Process Automation ...
Legal Strategies for Business Continuity Through Succession Planning
Business partners: Consider the interests and roles of business partners, ensuring their involvement in the transfer process to maintain business continuity. Leadership succession: Clearly define the leadership structure and roles, ensuring a seamless transition of authority and decision-making responsibilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

What Is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)?

Key Takeaways

Understanding Business Continuity Plans (BCPs)

Benefits of a Business Continuity Plan

How To Create a Business Continuity Plan

Business Continuity Impact Analysis

Business Continuity Plan vs. Disaster Recovery Plan

Why Is Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Important?

What Should a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Include?

What Is Business Continuity Impact Analysis?

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

What is a business continuity plan?

Business Continuity Plan Template

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Business continuity planning: Steps for success

1. Analyze your company