primary goal of business continuity planning

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Disaster Recovery

November 17, 2022 | Matt Pacheco

What is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning?

What is the primary goal of business continuity planning? It is simpler than you think.

Have you ever heard the scouting motto, “Always be prepared”? When’s the last time you applied it to your business functions? The primary goal of business continuity planning is simple: Have a clear, actionable, proactive plan in place for whatever might come your way. This could include outages, natural disasters, cybersecurity attacks, and more. We’ll go through some of the major pain points you need to address before you can declare your business continuity plan (BCP) ready for anything. 

What does a business continuity plan typically include? 

A BCP should outline what your business needs to do to recover from a disaster or setback, with a strategic disaster recovery plan as a subset of your overall approach. Business continuity vs disaster recovery is an important concept for businesses to understand when deciding how to prepare for disruption. When creating a business continuity plan, you should be thinking about: 

1. Your customers’ most urgent needs

Creating a plan with your customer’s needs in mind from the outset will help you determine which applications need to be treated with the greatest urgency in the recovery process. If you have some data and applications that don’t have as big of an effect on business continuity , they can appear further down your list of priorities. Start with critical, client-centric functions. 

2. A plan to keep your workforce moving 

Losing employee productivity can quickly snowball into other problems, including lost revenue, an erosion of trust, and abrupt turnover. Adding alternate workplace and remote access options for your employees will stop the snowball in its tracks. Keep the lines of communication open as you work to recover essential business functions so your team feels in the loop. 

3. Building with remote work in mind 

We have all seen over the past couple of years how remote work isn’t just a nice offering but is now often a requirement of doing business. Your business continuity plan isn’t robust enough if your VPN can’t handle remote workers, especially a surge of heavy demand. Think about what you would need to do to host most, if not all, of your workforce on VPN and other remote options. 

4. An outline of recovery objectives specific to your business 

Besides knowing what to recover first, you also need to know how quickly it should be recovered to minimize lost revenue. A BCP includes setting recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives – where things should be restored from and the time it takes to restore them. 

5. An up-to-date disaster recovery plan and redundancies 

Disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity planning and should be revisited often to ensure new technology and best practices are included. Creating a solid disaster recovery plan checklist is the first step in updating your plan and can allow for complete protection against your organization’s data and operations. Also, if you are using a cloud platform , just assuming it’s redundant without ensuring it has been designed or implemented to work can land you in some hot water. With that, it’s crucial to conduct periodic testing to ensure things are running smoothly.

The right disaster recovery solutions are right-sized for the systems you have. Consider the cost of disruption versus the cost of bringing everything back online to evaluate the true benefits of your plan. 

6. A cybersecurity policy 

Cybersecurity team members should be brought into the BC and disaster recovery process early and often. Because cybercrime can greatly affect your business’s ability to keep running, neglecting to include a response in your plan can be disastrous.

Pain points to address in your business continuity plan 

Ransomware attacks .

Long before the pandemic, ransomware was on the rise. However, with an increase in remote workers and unsecured machines, ransomware attacks have risen by 200%. They are becoming more frequent, more expensive, and more sophisticated. The cost of an average ransomware breach in 2021 was $4.62 million . Cybercriminals are getting more creative by selling Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) to make it easier than ever for other criminals to exploit vulnerabilities without much technical know-how. 

The threat landscape will continue to be a moving target. What looks like cloud-based malware and triple extortion now will look like something completely different in a year or two. There will always be a new danger on the horizon looking to capture and hold hostage valuable information. 

No matter what comes along, the best way to be prepared is by setting solid cybersecurity policies before anything happens. Employee onboarding needs to include cybersecurity training. Regularly test your employees by sending fake spear phishing emails. Enroll your staff in ongoing training so they are kept up on the latest security threats. Make them feel like they are your first line of defense because that’s exactly what they are. 

Cybersecurity should always be seen as a layered approach. Services like extended detection and response (XDR) , firewall services , and DDoS mitigation help protect your company’s data by performing a risk assessment before an intruder can make it far. Many data center providers have 24/7 staffing and are monitoring for any potential threats that may come in. 

Finally, if you have a remote workforce, virtual desktop infrastructure can allow your employees to easily work from anywhere while accessing the necessary files and programs they need, all with an extra layer of security between their device and your infrastructure. Manage roles and limit access however you need to work on reducing the risk of compromising your most sensitive data.  

Geographic diversity 

Extreme weather poses the second most severe global risk to businesses in 2022. It also goes together with the number one global risk, which is climate change action failure. If that risk continues to increase, we will see a likewise increase in extreme weather, which can cause major disruption for business operations during disasters. 

One of the main vulnerabilities comes from where your data centers are located. If they are in geographic areas particularly prone to extreme weather like tornadoes or hurricanes, you may be putting your business’ data at unnecessary risk. 

To combat this problem, you need geographic diversity in your data systems as part of your disaster recovery plan. Your primary and backup sites should be far enough apart that if a disaster strikes, both centers are not simultaneously affected. Frequent outages can cost you revenue and make your customers lose faith in your reliability. 

When considering data center locations , think about their geographic susceptibility to weather, where your customers and staff reside, and how the failover resources will work in cooperation between the centers you select.  

RPOs / RTOs 

It’s not good enough to simply say that you hope to have your data restored as soon as possible, and at any point, you can. Before something happens that has business-impacting consequences, you need to decide how much you can afford to lose at any given moment. 

Start by setting realistic business recovery objectives. A recovery point objective (RPO) determines how much data you can lose after a failure or disaster that isn’t too disruptive to your business processes. A recovery time objective (RTO) sets how much time is acceptable between failure and restoration. 

Your requirements for minimizing data loss and downtime will differ depending on your industry and type of business. Consider setting the RPOs and RTOs per application. Ensure your most important applications are recovered first and move down the list from there. Ask yourself the following questions if you’re trying to figure out where to start:

• Is this workload mission-critical? 
• How much effort will it take to reconstruct the data? 
• What compliance requirements govern the workload? 

An important part of disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) involves setting these objectives and restoring data after a disaster in a tiered manner. 

One of the overarching objectives of a business continuity plan is figuring out what business activities need to be restored first to create the smallest impact on your bottom line when a disruption occurs. To do this, you’ll want to run a business impact analysis (BIA).  

Constant uptime is a given expectation for almost all businesses, causing increasing investment in business continuity management. Customers expect 24/7 availability. Organizations also have to meet compliance requirements and mitigate their downtime costs. Staying always on and always available is a must for many companies. 

The staffing necessary to maintain constant uptime can be hard to come by, especially due to the cybersecurity workforce gap that will take several years to close, if ever. Choosing a data center provider that promises near-constant uptime and day-and-night monitoring and crisis management for any outages that may occur unexpectedly means you can remove some items from your ever-growing to-do list. Plus, data centers offer best-in-class technology and access to specialists that would otherwise be costly to keep on staff full-time in case of sporadic events. 

Providers can also help you with a backup and data recovery plan that builds on your RTO and RPO goals, to restore data to your ideal point in your given time frame. Everything works together – DRaaS, backup as a service (BaaS), and your RTO/RPO objectives, to form pieces of your business continuity plan. 

The primary goal of business continuity planning is getting you back to your normal

There’s never going to be a good time to slow or halt your business operations. With large enterprises losing an average of $400,000 per hour of downtime , it can be an expensive undertaking to be down for even short periods. Figuring out the goals of a business continuity plan for yourself can mean the difference between a long and prosperous business or being forced to close your doors. When you’re ready to put the continued operation at the forefront of your planning, download the ‘Ultimate Guide to Running Your Business Through Uncertainty and Disruption’ eBook to learn more .

Aug 25, 2023 | by Matt Pacheco

Data Center Disaster Recovery: Essential Steps and Strategy

Jun 27, 2023 | by Channing Lovett

Ensuring Cloud Resiliency: Safeguarding Your Digital Assets

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Business Continuity Simplified

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

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

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

What Is Business Continuity Management?

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

What Is a Business Continuity Plan?

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

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

What Is Business Continuity Planning?

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

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

What Is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning?

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

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

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

Business Continuity Planning Steps

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

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

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

The Business Continuity Management Lifecycle

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

The BCM lifecycle includes the following points:

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

What Are Business Continuity Risks or Events?

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

Such events might include the following:

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

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

What Is a Business Continuity Strategy?

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

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

An Overview of Business Continuity Management and Planning

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

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

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

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

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

Key Elements of Business Continuity Management

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

These important elements include the following:

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

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

The Costs of Business Continuity Management

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

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

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

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

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

Benefits of Business Continuity Management

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key Business Continuity Management and Planning Considerations

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

Consultant Services

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

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

Business Continuity Software

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Business Continuity Plan Test Types

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

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

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

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

Business Continuity Management Policy Statement

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

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

Cultivating Awareness of Business Continuity Plans

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

What Is the Importance of a Business Continuity Plan?

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

How to Write a Business Continuity Plan

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

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

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

Business Continuity Plan Template

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

Download Business Continuity Plan Template

Word | PowerPoint | PDF

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

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

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

The business impact analysis will include details on the following:

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

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

Risk Mitigation for Business Continuity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is a Business Continuity Plan Governance Committee?

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

The committee is often responsible for the following duties:

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

The committee often includes the following members:

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

How to Cultivate Resilience in Your Organization

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

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

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

The following are among the lessons learned:

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

Legislation Governing Some Business Continuity Management and Planning

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

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

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

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

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

What Is the Business Continuity Institute?

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

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What is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning

August 16, 2023

In today’s rapidly evolving and interconnected world, balancing growth and risk has become increasingly challenging for businesses. Any unexpected event can lead to significant disruptions and financial losses, from natural disasters to cyber-attacks or even human error.

The business continuity planning process allows organizations of all sizes to thrive despite uncertainties. What about business continuity planning ensures what is the primary goal of business continuity planning? Let’s dive in and explore this crucial aspect of modern businesses.

At its core, the primary goal of business continuity planning is to enable an organization to continue its mission-critical operations as seamlessly as possible during and after disruptions, thereby minimizing downtime and reducing potential financial or reputational losses.

BCP is an ongoing, holistic process that encompasses planning, communication, and testing to ensure organizations maintain their competitive edge, retain customer trust, and preserve the well-being of their employees amidst unforeseen events.

What is Business Continuity Planning?

BCP is a proactive process that involves anticipating, preparing for, and responding to a range of potential disruptions to guarantee an organization’s ongoing business function and sustainability.

It isn’t a one-time project; rather, it is an ongoing effort encompassing risk management , data protection, and crisis response, ensuring business stability in the face of challenges big and small.

The Primary Goal: Maintaining Critical Operations

The ultimate goal of business continuity planning is to secure the ongoing functionality of critical business processes during disruptive events–whether they are short-term or long-lasting incidents especially for financial industry regulatory authority.

What Is a Business Continuity Strategy?

Business continuity strategies are plans that help organizations prepare for, respond to, and recover from unexpected events or disasters. These business recovery strategies outline the structure of how to prevent, respond and recover from a disaster and approach recovery with a focus on minimizing disruption and restoring operations as quickly as possible.

The first step in creating a business continuity strategy is to conduct a business impact analysis (BIA) . This process helps identify time-sensitive or critical business functions and processes and the resources that support them.

Once key business functions are identified, these functions can be prioritized based on their importance to the organization. The BIA also helps determine what resources are needed to keep operations running during an emergency.

Once the BIA has been completed, organizations should create a plan that outlines how they will respond to various types of emergencies. This plan should include steps for preventing potential disasters, responding quickly when they occur, and recovering operations afterward. It should also include communication procedures for employees and customers during an emergency.

Organizations should also consider developing a risk management strategy that identifies and outlines ways to mitigate risks. This can help minimize the impact of any disruptions that do occur.

Additionally, it is important for businesses to review their business continuity plans regularly to remain up-to-date with technological or process changes.

Some people think of continuity strategy as an aspect of planning. Business continuity planners describe a business plan’s overall strategy and emergency survival procedures.

What is the primary goal of business continuity planning? It is simpler than you think

Do people remember their Scouts’ motto? Always prepare? Business continuity plans are designed to provide measurable, actionable, and proactive plans for any eventual event.

This may be a disaster or unforeseen event, including cyber-attacks or other types.

Key Elements of Business Continuity Management

Business continuity management plans have several key components which serve as essential tools to ensure your plan succeeds and that you maintain and improve your plan regularly.

Business continuity management (BCM) is a holistic process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts those threats may have on business operations.

It involves developing, testing, and improving plans and procedures to enable an organization to continue operating during a disaster or disruption . BCM helps organizations prepare for and respond to any type of incident or crisis that could affect their operations.

The key elements of BCM include:

Risk Assessment : Identifying potential risks to the organization and assessing their impact on operations. This includes understanding the likelihood of a risk occurring as well as its severity.

Impact Analysis : Analyzing how different types of incidents would affect the organization’s operations, including its people, processes, technology, and facilities.

Business Continuity Plan : Develop plans and procedures that will enable critical services of the organization to continue operating in the event of a disruption or disaster. This includes identifying critical functions and processes, determining alternative methods for performing them, and establishing recovery timelines.

Testing & Training : Regularly testing the crisis communications plan to ensure it is up-to-date and effective; training personnel on how to use it; and ensuring everyone understands their roles in responding to a crisis.

A successful BCP will include:

1. Risk Assessments and Strategies : Identifying potential threats and determining the most effective approach to minimize their impact.

2. Disaster Recovery Plans : Establishing clear steps to restore essential functions, from salvaging crucial data to securing alternate operational locations.

3. Communications Management : Ensuring open channels of communication with employees, customers, suppliers, and business partners during a crisis to keep all informed and engaged.

4. Testing and Maintenance : Simulating crisis scenarios to identify weak spots, then fine-tuning the plan and training employees to ensure the company’s resilience.

Business continuity planning is essential to safeguarding your investment, not just in the face of major disasters but also for any unexpected hiccup along the way.

Key Components of a Robust BCP Strategy

To understand the primary goal of business continuity planning further, let’s take a closer look at its vital components:

1. Risk Assessment:

Identifying potential threats and vulnerabilities is the first step in building a successful BCP. This includes thoroughly analyzing an organization’s resources, operations, and critical assets, enabling the business to detect risks and prioritize potential threats.

2. Business Impact Analysis (BIA):

A BIA helps businesses determine the severity of potential disruptions and associated financial losses. This process involves estimating the impact on customer satisfaction, regulatory compliance, and overall company performance to derive a comprehensive picture of the organization’s risk profile.

3. Recovery Strategies:

Armed with insights from risk assessments and BIAs, businesses can develop appropriate action plans to ensure operational continuity during and after disruptions.

This may involve adopting alternative processes, advanced technology, or finding workarounds to meet essential business demands.

4. Communication and Crisis Management:

Effective communication is a critical aspect of BCP. Organizations should define clear communication channels and designate roles within management structure to ensure smooth coordination during times of crisis. With a reliable crisis management team, businesses can swiftly adapt to unexpected situations and make well-informed decisions.

5. Testing and Maintenance:

Revisiting and testing your BCP frequently is the key to success. Regularly reviewing and updating your plan can help you stay prepared for shifts in the business landscape, technological advancements, and emerging threats.

Reaping the Benefits: Why it Matters

A comprehensive BCP can lead to an array of benefits, including enhanced stakeholder confidence, improved decision-making, better risk management , and long-term growth.

Investing in a robust BCP and aligning it with the organization’s objectives, businesses can weather disruptions and become more agile, adaptable, and resilient – a true indicator of success in today’s dynamic world.

In conclusion, the primary goal of business continuity planning is to empower organizations with the tools and strategies to navigate through uncertain times gracefully.

As businesses thrive amid unprecedented challenges, embracing BCP as an indispensable part of your corporate strategy might just be your key to staying ahead in the game.

Business Continuity Planning Steps

The Business Plan for Continual Use includes procedures for the management of disruption of business operations. The effort is equally important for big or small businesses to create plans. Simple plans are more important. Business continuity plans generally include the following steps:

The first step is initiation. This involves identifying the plan’s scope, understanding the risks associated with potential disasters or other business disruptions , and determining who will oversee the process.

The second step is a business impact analysis (BIA). This involves assessing how different disasters or disruptions could affect your business operations. It also includes identifying critical functions and dependencies that must be maintained in order to restore business functions and keep your business running.

The third step is developing a plan. This includes creating policies and procedures for responding to different types of disasters or disruptions and establishing alert levels and monitoring systems to help identify potential threats before they become serious issues.

The fourth step is implementing the strategy and plan. This includes training employees on how to respond in emergencies, cross-training staff to cover critical functions if necessary, and establishing communication protocols to keep everyone informed during a crisis.

Finally, it’s important to test and maintain your plan on an ongoing basis. Regularly review your policies and procedures to make sure they are up-to-date with current best practices, conduct drills to practice emergency response scenarios, and update your contact list so you have accurate information when needed.

Recovery Strategy

Those strategies seek to recover business profit losses from the catastrophe. In the Recovery Strategy, companies must identify losses and determine resources that are needed for recovery.

They should also mention the speed and scope of the resources required to acquire them. In terms of resources, you should think about whether the resources need building up or acquisition. Assurances or guarantees back it up. A critical business process must also be viewed.

Benefits of Business Continuity Management

According to Engemann, companies that invest heavily in business continuity management have several important benefits.

It helps organizations identify potential threats and vulnerabilities, develop plans to address them and ensure that operations can continue during a disaster or other disruption.

BCM involves assessing risks and developing strategies to mitigate them. This includes identifying critical processes, resources, and personnel; establishing recovery objectives; creating backup plans; and testing these plans regularly.

BCM also involves training employees on how to respond to emergencies when disaster strikes and developing policies for communication with customers and stakeholders.

A comprehensive BCM plan can help businesses stay resilient in the face of disruption. It can also help reduce downtime and financial losses due to unexpected events. Additionally, having a BCM plan in place may be necessary for compliance with certain regulations or industry standards.

Overall, business continuity management is essential for any organization looking to protect its operations from potential disruptions.

What does a business continuity plan typically include?

A business continuity plan (BCP) typically includes the critical information an organization needs to continue operating during an unplanned disruption.

This information can include procedures and instructions for responding to a disaster, such as fire, flood, or cyberattack; a business impact analysis that identifies time-sensitive or critical business functions and processes; and the resources needed to support them.

Additionally, a BCP should outline how the organization will restore operations after the disruption has ended.A BCP can explain how your entire business” can recover during a disaster or setback.

Key benefits of business continuity planning

t helps organizations prepare for and respond to unexpected disruptions, such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks, or other emergencies. By having a plan in place, businesses can minimize the impact of these events and ensure that their operations continue to run smoothly.

The key benefits of business continuity planning include:

Reduced downtime : Business continuity planning helps organizations identify potential risks and develop strategies to minimize the impact of those risks on their operations. This means that if an emergency occurs, the organization can quickly restore operations and reduce downtime.

Improved customer service : An organization having a plan in place, is better able to respond to customer needs during an emergency situation. This allows them to maintain customer loyalty and trust even during difficult times.

Increased efficiency : Business continuity plans help organizations identify areas where they can improve their processes and procedures so that they can become more efficient in the long run. This can lead to cost savings and improved productivity over time.

Enhanced business reputation: Having a well-developed business continuity plan shows customers and stakeholders that the organization takes its responsibilities seriously and is prepared for any eventuality. This can help build trust with customers and boost the organization’s reputation in the marketplace.

Business continuity planning is essential for any organization looking to protect itself from unexpected disruptions or emergencies.

The Costs of Business Continuity Management

The cost of business continuity management depends on several factors, such as the size and complexity of the organization, the type of plan needed, and the resources available.

Generally speaking, larger organizations will require more resources and may need to invest more money into their business continuity plans . Smaller organizations may be able to get away with less expensive solutions through continuous business operations.

Organizations should also consider the potential costs of not having a business continuity plan. According to research from Gartner, businesses can expect downtime costing an average of $400,000 an hour if they do not have a plan in place.

Additionally, 35 percent of companies this size experience at least one hour of downtime each year due to unplanned events or disasters. These costs can quickly add up over time and could potentially cripple an organization if it is unprepared for such events.

When creating a business continuity plan , organizations should consider both the upfront costs as well as potential long-term savings that could be realized by having a plan in place.

Cloud Endure found that organizations with a daily cost of downtime of less than $10,000 spend less than $10,000 annually on their business continuity plans. Ongoing Operations estimates that each component ranges from $5k to $25k when bundled together or $10k to $40k when purchased separately.

A successful business continuity strategy will require considerable investment in your time and resources. However, some report says an annual loss of business could be as high as $2.7 million.

An outline of recovery objectives specific to your business

It’s important for people to know the best way to recover money to minimize losses. BCPs include establishing recovery points objectives and recovery time objectives , period targets to which things are to be restored, and time to restore these.

An up-to-date disaster recovery plan and redundancies

Disaster recovery is part of business continuity plans and requires periodic reviews for the inclusion of new technologies. Best practices are also considered. Creating a comprehensive disaster recovery business communication plan checklist will help maintain complete data security and operational integrity.

If you use cloud-based platforms, it can be difficult to assume that the solution was designed to perform without the knowledge that it is reliable. This is why periodic testing is necessary for a successful operation. The right catastrophe recovery data backup solution will fit your needs.

Business Continuity Management Policy Statement

Business continuity policies are written documents describing the business continuity plan. All employees must receive the policy statement, sign it, and approve its approval from their senior management.

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

Although your business continuity software will feature many features, you need some basic things to consider for its operation. BCM systems may help reduce the likelihood and cost of disasters.

In summary, planning refers to the decision to determine critical recovery processes, equipment, and tools and apply the necessary recovery strategies.

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

For success, your senior managers will need support in your organization’s Continual Improvement Plans. These roles are vital when disasters, including terrorism, cyclones, and earthquakes.

Make sure that management is committed to establishing and implementing business continuity and crisis recovery programs.Such programs will not be successful without top-down support and funding.

Cultivating Awareness of Business Continuity Plans

No one can know about a successful business continuity solution. The good idea is to involve specific business unit continuity managers at cross-functional planning meetings to help them represent a business continuity perspective.

You can also test it once. There is a business continuity plan template that your business continuity team can use. Business continuity institute recommends using business continuity management software to maintain continuous business operations and calculate recovery point objectives.

How to test business continuity plans

Several tests may help you assess your plan’s effectiveness. In addition to preparing these test plans, you must ensure that the necessary details, such as contact info, are included in the plan. A phone number problem can cause high costs to get it right but may ultimately cause a delayed response.

Business Continuity Plan Test Types

Testing ensures you have an efficient plan and offers training for participants. Assuming the best possible communication, bring vendors and others to the exercise. Likewise, include local emergency preparedness officials where necessary. It is possible to test differently – each requires more planning, resources, and focus. You can do drills at different levels. Keep a record of what happens during a test.

Overall, it is clear that business continuity planning is an essential component of the success of any organization. It allows organizations to plan and prepare for whatever potential disasters or disruptions may come their way.

Planning and creating a detailed plan can help keep businesses up and running in the face of adversity so they don’t risk losing any customers or clients. Furthermore, having a professional IT staff handle the planning more effectively can be extremely beneficial when things go wrong.

Preparing beforehand is a major part of avoiding disruption in disaster-related scenarios, and knowledge about it should be mandatory for all business professionals. When done properly, business continuity planning can be a key factor for successful operations, even under the most difficult conditions.

As such, it should always be on the priority list for senior management within an organization to ensure its sustainability in times of hardship.

Chris Ekai is a Risk Management expert with over 10 years of experience in the field. He has a Master’s(MSc) degree in Risk Management from University of Portsmouth and is a CPA and Finance professional. He currently works as a Content Manager at Risk Publishing, writing about Enterprise Risk Management, Business Continuity Management and Project Management.

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What Is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning?

• Disruptions and unexpected events can have a significant impact on a business’s ability to operate effectively.
• Business continuity planning aims to minimize the impact of these events and ensure that critical business functions can continue.

What Is a Business Continuity Plan?

What is business continuity management, understanding business continuity planning, understanding the primary goal of business continuity planning, key components of a business continuity plan, factors to consider when developing a business continuity plan, the role of business continuity planning in disaster management.

Business continuity is the process of ensuring that critical business functions continue to operate during a crisis. A business continuity plan is a comprehensive plan that outlines how an organization will continue to operate during and after an unexpected event or crisis. The goal of a business continuity plan is to ensure that essential business processes can continue with minimal disruption.

Business continuity management (BCM) is the process of identifying potential risks and developing strategies to ensure that critical business functions can continue in the event of an unexpected event or crisis. BCM involves developing a comprehensive plan that outlines the steps that need to be taken to minimize the impact of a disruption on an organization and ensure that it can quickly return to normal operations.

Business continuity planning (BCP) is a critical component of business continuity management (BCM). BCP is the process of creating and implementing a plan that outlines how an organization will continue its critical functions and operations in the event of a disaster or unexpected event. The BCP outlines the steps that need to be taken to minimize the impact of a disruption on the organization and ensure that it can quickly recover and resume normal operations. The plan typically includes detailed procedures for communication, emergency response, backup systems and data recovery, and continuity of operations. Regular testing and updating of the plan is essential to ensure its effectiveness.

Don’t wait for a disaster to strike – start implementing a business continuity plan (BCP) now to protect your business and ensure its survival in the face of unexpected events.

Why Business Continuity Planning is Important?

Without a business continuity plan, organizations risk losing critical data, losing access to essential systems, and even going out of business altogether. Disruptions can result in lost revenue, reputational damage, and legal or regulatory non-compliance. Business continuity planning can help organizations to prepare for and respond to disruptions, ensuring that they can continue to deliver products or services to customers, maintain the confidence of stakeholders, and remain competitive.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a critical aspect of every organization. The primary goal of BCP is to ensure that essential business operations continue in the event of an unplanned disruption, such as a natural disaster, cyber-attack, or any other catastrophic event. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into the topic of Business Continuity Planning, its primary goal, and why it’s essential for every business.

The primary goal of Business Continuity Planning is to enable an organization to continue providing its essential business functions during a disaster or any other unexpected event that threatens the organization’s operations. This goal aims to ensure that business operations can continue with minimal disruption and downtime, reducing the impact on the organization, its employees, and its customers.

A business continuity plan should include the following key components:

Risk Assessment Identifying potential risks and assessing their likelihood and potential impact on the organization.

Business Impact Analysis Identifying critical business functions and determining their priorities in the event of a disruption.

Emergency Response Plan Outlining the procedures and protocols that need to be followed in the event of an emergency, including evacuation, communication, and first aid.

Data Backup and Recovery Plan Outlining the procedures and protocols for backing up and recovering critical data and systems.

Communication Plan Outlining the procedures and protocols for communicating with employees, customers, vendors, and other stakeholders in the event of a disruption.

Continuity of Operations Plan Outlining the procedures and protocols for maintaining essential business functions and resuming normal operations as quickly as possible.

Benefits of Business Continuity Planning Business Continuity Planning provides numerous benefits to an organization, such as:

Protection against Risks One of the key benefits of BCP is protection against potential risks. By identifying potential risks and implementing strategies to mitigate them, an organization can safeguard its critical business functions from the impact of any unplanned event.

Minimization of Downtime Another benefit of BCP is that it minimizes downtime. In the event of a disaster, a BCP enables an organization to quickly recover its essential business functions, thereby reducing the amount of time the organization remains inactive.

Maintenance of Customer Confidence A well-developed BCP helps maintain customer confidence in an organization. Customers will have greater trust in an organization that can continue providing essential services even during a crisis, ensuring that the organization continues to generate revenue.

Preservation of the Company’s Reputation In addition to customer confidence, a BCP helps preserve an organization’s reputation. By showing its stakeholders that it can quickly respond and recover from a disaster, an organization can protect its reputation and demonstrate its commitment to responsible business practices.

Several factors must be considered when developing a BCP. These include:

Identification of Potential Risks

The first step in developing a BCP is to identify potential risks that could disrupt essential business functions. Organizations should identify both internal and external risks and prioritize them based on their potential impact.

Prioritization of Key Business Functions Once risks have been identified, organizations must prioritize their critical business functions. This ensures that they can focus on recovering those functions that are essential to the survival of the organization.

Establishment of Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) are critical in BCP as they establish the maximum time an organization has to recover its critical business functions. RTOs should be established based on the prioritization of business functions and the potential risks identified.

Creation of Crisis Communication Strategies In the event of a disaster, effective communication is crucial in managing the situation. A BCP should include a crisis communication plan that outlines how the organization will communicate with its employees, customers, and stakeholders.

Testing and Updating the Plan Once a BCP has been developed, it must be tested and updated regularly. Testing ensures that the plan is effective and can be implemented in the event of a disaster. Updating the plan ensures that it remains relevant and takes into account any changes in the organization’s operations or potential risks.

BCP plays a critical role in disaster management by providing a framework for managing the impact of a disaster. The following are the four phases of disaster management and how BCP fits into each:

Mitigation BCP helps mitigate the impact of a disaster by identifying potential risks and implementing strategies to minimize their impact on critical business functions.

Preparedness Preparedness is crucial in disaster management, and BCP plays a critical role in ensuring that an organization is prepared to respond to a disaster. A well-developed BCP ensures that an organization can quickly respond to a disaster and recover its essential business functions.

Response During the response phase, BCP provides a framework for managing the impact of the disaster on critical business functions. The plan outlines the steps to be taken to recover the functions, communicate with stakeholders, and manage the situation.

Recovery The final phase of disaster management is recovery, where an organization must rebuild and restore its operations. BCP plays a critical role in ensuring that an organization can recover quickly and efficiently, minimizing the impact of the disaster on the organization, its employees, and its customers.

The Business Continuity Planning Process The Business Continuity Planning (BCP) process involves several steps that must be followed to ensure a comprehensive plan is developed. These steps include:

Business Impact Analysis (BIA) The first step in the BCP process is to conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA). This involves identifying critical business functions, assessing the impact of a disruption to those functions, and determining the recovery time objectives (RTO) for each function.

Risk Assessment The second step in the BCP process is to conduct a risk assessment. This involves identifying potential threats to the organization, assessing the likelihood and impact of those threats, and determining appropriate mitigation strategies.

Business Continuity Strategy Development Based on the BIA and risk assessment, the next step is to develop a business continuity strategy. This involves selecting the appropriate recovery options for each critical business function and determining the order in which those functions will be recovered.

Plan Development Once the business continuity strategy has been developed, the next step is to create a comprehensive BCP. This should include detailed procedures for each critical business function, as well as instructions for activating the plan and coordinating the recovery effort.

Testing and Maintenance The final step in the BCP process is to regularly test and maintain the plan. This involves conducting exercises and drills to validate the plan, identifying any gaps or areas for improvement, and updating the plan as necessary to ensure it remains current and effective.

By following these steps, organizations can ensure that they have a comprehensive and effective business continuity plan in place to minimize the impact of disruptions and ensure continuity of critical business operations.

In conclusion, the primary goal of Business Continuity Planning is to ensure that an organization can continue providing its essential business functions during a disaster or any other unexpected event. By developing a BCP, organizations can protect themselves against potential risks, minimize downtime, maintain customer confidence, and preserve their reputation. BCP plays a critical role in disaster management, providing a framework for managing the impact of a disaster on an organization’s operations.

Here are some frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the primary goal of business continuity planning:

The primary goal of business continuity planning is to ensure that critical business functions can continue in the event of a disruption.

Business continuity planning is important because it helps organizations prepare for and respond to unexpected disruptions that could impact critical business operations.

Business continuity planning is focused on ensuring that critical business functions can continue in the event of a disruption, while disaster recovery is focused on recovering IT systems and infrastructure in the event of a disaster.

Business continuity planning is the responsibility of senior management and the business continuity team.

Business continuity plans should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis, typically at least once a year or whenever there are significant changes to the organization or its operations.

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What is the primary goal of business continuity planning, and how to achieve it

Disaster often strikes without notice. Even with some prior warning, a multitude of factors can cause the best of intentions to result in errors, and mistakes when faced with disaster.  Every incident is unique, and understanding what is the primary goal of business continuity planning can ensure your business can respond to every disaster with a tailored and measured approach.

Below, we explain exactly what is the primary goal of business continuity planning, how to create a business continuity plan, and what measures you need to put in place to maximize your organization’s chances of success during a disaster.

On this page:

What is the primary goal of business continuity planning

Why business continuity planning matters, advantages of business continuity planning, how to write a business continuity plan, difference between disaster recovery and business continuity, business continuity and insurance, testing your business continuity plan, business continuity standards.

To overcome any crisis, and minimize any impact to your staff, customers and the business, you need a robust business continuity plan (BCP).  Having a BCP demonstrates to your customers, insurers, investors, and stakeholders that your business is robust enough to overcome any disaster that it may face.

So, what is the primary goal of business continuity planning?

A business continuity plan presents how the business will proceed during a crisis. It is considered a blueprint for an organization to maintain continuous business operations during disasters, emergencies, and other business disruptions, and get back to normal business operations as early as possible.

What are the objectives of business continuity planning

Now we understand what the primary goal of business continuity planning is, let’s take a look at some of the objectives that businesses can achieve through business continuity planning:

• Operations continuity assurance during disruption – Ensuring your business has the capability, systems, protocols, and practices in place to mitigate most probable forms of disruption
• Improved mitigation of risks – By establishing risk management strategy and regular appraisal and assessment of existing, and new risks, businesses can improve the mitigation of risks.
• Robust platforms continued operation – Making sure your organization has the necessary platforms (infrastructure, resources, technology, capacity), to operate in the event of a catastrophic disruption.
• Improved commercial health, and competitiveness – Developing the capability of the organization to ensure it can operate more effectively, and better serve its customers, than its competitors during a catastrophic event.
• Reducing the risk of financial loss – Increasing financial stability by ensuring the business can overcome any catastrophic event cost-effectively.
• Improved customer confidence and reliability – Ensure the uninterrupted availability of all its critical services and products in the event of a catastrophic incident.
• Secure contribution to the national economy – Through continued contribution to the local, regional and national economy, businesses can support local employment and industry.
• Increase capability to manage business-impacting disruptions
• Increased resilience against disruption, to protect sales, production, employees, customers

While the terms business continuity and disaster recovery are closely related, they a different.  Typically, disaster recovery is associated with the technology function of your business.

See also: Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery

Your disaster recovery plan should form a core component of your business continuity planning and strategy. This approach puts the emphasis on the whole business, not just on technology alone, reinforcing the concept of continuity of all key business processes, beyond information technology systems.

The primary output from the business continuity planning process is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP). The BCP comprises many elements which, collectively, define the approach an organization should take to recover to normal business operations.

See also: Understanding Business Continuity

So, we understand what the primary goal of business continuity planning is, and we also understand some of the objectives that a business can fulfil through business continuity planning.  But why does business continuity matter, and what are the advantages for your business?

Businesses strive to remain competitive regardless of whether they are a small business or medium organization, or the industry they are in. For your business, it is crucial to retain and maintain your existing customers while simultaneously growing your customer base.

What does this have to do with business continuity planning and achieving the primary goal and objectives?

Having the capability to manage any adverse incident effectively can positively affect your business’ reputation and market value, increasing customer confidence.

At a basic level, there is no better test of your capability in serving your customers then than immediately following an adverse event.

Most businesses have several disaster recovery solutions available, ranging from data backups to data recovery. But what recovery processes do you have for the remainder of your business processes and workflows?

There is an increase in consumer and regulatory expectations for security today. Organizations need to understand the processes and workflows within their business and the impact of the loss of these processes in the event of an adverse incident.

Disruptions to an organization’s operations can be very costly, both in the short the long term. They can adversely affect the market value and consumer confidence.

If in the event of a disruptive event, customer experience is negatively impacted, then those customers can quickly abandon the organization permanently.

Building your recovery strategy around these processes can be mitigated through business continuity planning:

• Risk mitigation and risk management strategies – The best way to reduce the impact of a disruption is to avoid it. By implementing, or adjusting, existing work processes and procedures, businesses can often significantly reduce the impact of any disruption or even avoid altogether.
• The protection of crucial business functions and assets – In the event of a significant disruptive incident, you need to take swift action to protect essential functions and assets in your business. For example, in the event, your supply chain is disrupted, you should have in place alternative sourcing solutions to minimize any interruption to service delivery.
• Steps to restore impacted operations and assets as quickly as possible – Any protective measures, such as sourcing from an alternative supply chain, should only be temporary. What you should be aiming for, and as per the primary goal of business continuity planning, is for your business return to normal operations, at the earliest opportunity.

Business continuity planning can help your business react in an efficient and effective manner to unplanned disruptive incidents and events, reducing losses and impact on your business’ ability to operate.

Many businesses are facing deliberate and accidental damages. These damages can cause significant disruptions in the operations and interfere with preparing for emergencies.

That’s why we have business continuity planning. It helps you with the recovery strategy, prepare for the unexpected incidents, and show you the ultimate benefits.

Importance of business continuity planning

Whatever problems you’re facing with your business, you are bound to end up with some consequences for the best or the worst.

While you can’t altogether avoid getting hit, you can at least try to reduce the effect by executing a clear and comprehensive business continuity plan.

A perfect plan will help you survive. Make sure you throw your plan out there and test it. Don’t forget to see how you can minimize the potential impact of crises .

Key benefits of business continuity planning

While we’re at it, let’s see how business continuity planning can help you:

• keeps your business trading during and after a crisis
• recovers operations more quickly after interruptions
• reduces expenses and duration of any disruption
• reduces risks and financial exposure
• builds considerable seller-customer confidence and trust
• safeguard company reputation
• develops confidence within the business
• complies with regulatory or legal requirements
• insures against otherwise unacceptable risks
• saves lives, if dangerous events (such as a fire) occur

You may find the basis for business continuity planning to be two linked, but distinct practices :

• Risk assessment – it shows the different type of situation you may face
• Business impact analysis (BIA) – this determines the cooldown period for major activities

Priorities and deadlines for activities are BIA’s territory. While risk assessment is limited to drawing the possible scenarios, the effects, and the danger.

These two provides you with the most reliable information you can use to develop your continuity plan.

Your business continuity plan (BCP) should outline the course of action you need to take to restore business functions as quickly as possible.

Business continuity plans are tailored to specific business workflows and processes, with each BCP unique to each organization.  However, there are some common steps that businesses undertake when developing business continuity plans:

• Assignment of a business continuity planning team – The business continuity planning team, will coordinate the activities required to assemble and develop the plan. The contact details of for each member of the team should be documented, as well as the role for each team member within the management structure.
• Risk analysis and assessment – The first step is to identify potential areas of risk, the likelihood of that risk occurring, and the level of impact that risk will have on the business. Read more about IT risk and technology risk assessment methodologies .
• Analysis of the potential impacts of disruptions – A business impact analysis, or BIA , assesses the impact that any risks would have on a business’ operations. It will also ascertain any financial impacts too. This analysis helps the business continuity planning team to prioritize the plan’s sequence of events, and determine restoration timelines, in terms of RPO and RTO .
• Strategy development – The protection and restoration of business functions, process, and procedures will be a core part of the business continuity plan. The team will need to coordinate, identify and document action plans to address each type of risk. The action plans need to be tailored to fit specific scenarios, such as a natural disaster, as well as a specific business unit.  Disaster recovery plans fall into this step.  For instance, if a flood was to damage critical computing equipment, the IT department may need to restore data from backups.
• Training, testing, and exercises – It is crucial to test the plan to evaluate the plan’s feasibility. Exercises will help the business continuity team to identify potential issues, as well as familiarizing them with the content of the plan. Training activities must be performed regularly to ensure that team members stay competent and proficient.
• Regular revisions – Your business continuity plan should be continually updated, and where necessary revised, to maintain its relevance and usefulness. For instance, the plan may identify the use of software or personnel that are no longer available. Without an updated plan, any business continuity effort could be compromised.

What should a business continuity plan include?

The nature of the solution will depend on the type of disruption.  Try covering the following areas:

• Emergency response – your priority should be the welfare of the suffering people before doing something about the crisis. To ensure them the maximum safety develop incident response flowcharts or checklists, evacuation guidelines and procedures, list of relocation sites, etc. After assuring safety to each and everyone, you can now start measuring the damage and restoring procedures of your business.
• Crisis management – decide the information flow to media, stakeholders, staff, etc. Agree on the communication protocols, determine managing the loss event, and make sure you have enough resources to support the recovery. Prepare yourself for the possible media interest. If required, consider appointing a spokesperson for any media queries, being clear and transparent by communicating with staff, customers, and suppliers before the media.
• Business recovery – Inform BIA’s detailed operational plans for critical functions and assets. To restore essential operations, identify the resources and the personnel you may need help from. Make sure all of you agree on the followable strategies and responses to reduce the loss of business. Make a plan that’s clear enough to get through everybody, and they can start taking actions immediately in emergencies. You can also try training them beforehand to deal better with such a situation. This will build a reflex in them with their assigned task.
• Key contacts – create a list for both the internal and external people and organizations to reach them instantly for help. Also, assign them with roles you need them for during the crisis. Such as details of key staff, critical suppliers, local councils, neighboring businesses, police, utility providers, landlords, or insurers. Including details of service providers like glaziers, locksmiths, plumber, electricians, and IT specialists will also help. Don’t forget to include maps of your business premises’ layout as it’ll help the emergency services to start taking actions faster.

However, despite these plans, you need to consider the fact that there could be different disruptive situations that call for a different response. That’s why you need to keep several alternatives to address different disaster scenarios, whether it’s the worst-case events or the partial outages.

Business continuity plan templates and tools

You have two options to start your business continuity plan with. Go from scratch or get some help from online templates. To find your best suit, you might need to customize the plan according to your business needs.

You can get some help from GOV.UK’s business continuity management toolkit (PDF, 569K) [8] and get yourself a tailored plan according to particular circumstances of your business

You can run into a lot of technological incidents during a crisis. To recover your business from the damage, you need a disaster recovery plan. This plan will help you restore the destroyed data and applications due to the data center, servers, or IT infrastructure damage.

Use the disaster recovery plan besides the business continuity plan to get the necessary strategies to handle the risk.

Continuity planning relates very closely to business insurance. You’ll find that most of the insurers consider business continuity to be a prerequisite for providing cover. To get more details, check out business insurance .

Business continuity plans must be working documents which has to be written, updated, and tested daily to check the performance. Regular testing of your business continuity plan will provide an indication of performance during emergencies.

For effective testing, you should test it against something more plausible than hypothetical scenarios. Doing this will also help you figure out and fix some things before the test, like:

• agreeing on clear testing criteria and procedures
• agreeing on the procedures of documenting the findings
• determining the process of correcting problems that arose during the test

Why should you test your business continuity plan?

To understand and verify that your plan is useful and fulfilling its purpose, you must run a thorough and careful. Doing this, you’ll be able to:

• properly train your staff involved in the recovery of the business
• figure out which part of your plan needs more strength
• demonstrate your company’s recovering ability

You may consider outsourcing certain functions of your business to a third party. If you do, you’ll need to evaluate the adequacy of their business continuity plan and the compatibility with your plan.

How to test business continuity plans

You can run a few tests to estimate the effectiveness of your plan. For example:

• checklist tests
• table-top exercises
• structured walk-throughs
• scheduled simulations
• full recovery / interruption tests

Now, besides running these tests, it’s vital that you take care of all the essential details involved in the plan, such as the correct contact information. If there’s something wrong with a phone number, then it can take a considerable chunk out of your precious time to find the right one and eventually resulting in a late response to the crisis.

How often should you test your business continuity plan?

It depends. You’ll see many businesses testing their continuity plan more than two times a year. You need to consider a few factors when concluding how often you should test the plan.

Factors such as the type of your business, turnover of staff, and changes in the procedures and technology used in your business, all need to be taken into account when determining the frequency for testing.

Maintain your business continuity plan

Creating and testing the plan may require a considerable amount of effort and time. But there’s more to it. You must update the plan daily to consider your business’ everchanging circumstances. Take moving into new business premises, for example.

The previous plan might not have anything in common with the new premises, which can be threatening as you face completely new sorts of risks. You’ll have to make a new plan and include a newly drawn map for the emergency services and also amend the contact numbers.

This can help review your business continuity plan annually and completing this review beside testing will ensure the maximum efficiency of the plan.

To understand the accuracy and efficiency of how your business continuity plans and procedures align with the best methods out there, you should measure them against and international standard.

The standard defines the requirements for a management system to protect against, reduce the risks, and ensure the recovery from the crisis.

Find out more about the ISO 22301 business continuity management standard .

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Lucy has more than 23 years of experience in the technology industry. Specialising in the cloud and telecommunications sectors, Lucy has previously worked in senior management roles within HR & Operations for major national and international organisations such as BT, O2 and more recently, Vodafone. Lucy is currently the Deputy Online Editor at BusinessTechWeekly.com

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Home » Organizational Change » What Is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning?

What Is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning?

What is the primary goal of business continuity planning?

In this article, we’ll answer that question and more, covering topics such as:

• The advantages of business continuity planning
• What to include in a business continuity plan
• Other strategies that can mitigate the effects of business disruptions

We’ll start, of course, by learning about business continuity planning itself.

Business continuity planning aims to maintain continuous business operations during disasters, emergencies, and other business disruptions.

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Disruptions to an organization’s normal operations can be very costly, both in the short and the long terms. 

If a particular disruption negatively impacts the customer experience , for instance, then those customers can easily abandon the organization permanently. 

The result: lost market share, lower profit margins, and a competitive disadvantage.

Business continuity plans mitigate these problems through…

• Risk prevention and mitigation strategies. The best way to decrease the effects of a disruption is to avoid it entirely. With the right work processes and procedures, workplace-related hazards, for instance, can often be dramatically reduced or even completely avoided. Though risk management is technically a separate discipline from business continuity management, in this case the two share the same goal: minimizing the effects of business disruptions.
• The protection of key business functions and assets. In the event of a major disruption or disaster, an organization must take swift action to protect the most critical business functions and assets. If the supply chain is disrupted, for example, organizations should have alternative sourcing solutions in place to prevent the interruption of service delivery. Or if the physical worksite becomes compromised, remote working can enable employees to stay productive no matter where they are.
• Actions designed to restore lost operations and assets as quickly as possible. The protective measures mentioned above, such as remote working or alternative supply chain sourcing, should only be temporary. The sooner an organization can return to normal operations, the better. The business continuity plan should also outline a course of action designed to restore those functions as quickly as possible – in some cases, this may be the only course of action included in the continuity plan, depending on the plan’s purpose and scope.

Business continuity management and planning can help organizations react efficiently and effectively to unplanned disruptions, reducing losses and, ideally, ensuring that those disruptions have little to no impact on the organization’s ability to operate. 

What Should Be Included in a Business Continuity Plan?

The nature of the solution will depend on the nature of the disruption.

However, most continuity plans follow the same steps:

• Analysis of the potential impacts of disruptions. A business impact analysis projects the potential impacts that a disruption would have on an organization’s operations, as well as its financial impacts. This information will help business continuity planners establish restoration timelines and prioritize the plan’s sequence of events.
• Assignment of a business continuity team. A business continuity team will be responsible for the coordination and implementation of the plan. Each plan should provide the contact details of that team, while also describing the management structure and the roles that each team member will play.
• Protection and restoration activities. As mentioned above, the protection and restoration of business functions will form the core part of the business continuity plan. These actions should be tailored to fit a specific scenario, such as a natural disaster, as well as a specific business unit. 
• Training, testing, and exercises. Planning should not be purely theoretical. It is important to actually test the plan and perform exercises, in order to determine the plan’s feasibility. Exercises can help continuity teams identify potential issues, while also familiarizing them with the content of the plan. These types of training activities should be performed on a regular basis to ensure that team members stay competent and proficient.
• Regular updates. The plan should be continually updated to ensure that it stays relevant and useful. If, for instance, the plan calls for the use of software or personnel that are no longer available, then the continuity effort could be completely compromised. 

It is also important to note that business continuity plans differ from other types of risk mitigation strategies, such as emergency response plans and IT disaster recovery plans. Though some business continuity professionals include these types of plans under the same category, others develop separate plans.

In such cases, other response plans can include:

• Emergency response plans. These plans outline the actions to undertake immediately following an emergency, such as a fire or a natural disaster.
• IT disaster recovery plans. IT disaster recovery plans are plans to be implemented by IT departments, aimed at recovering lost data, restoring the IT infrastructure, and so forth.
• Crisis communications plan. If a business is impacted by a disaster or another disruption, it is imperative to communicate effectively, efficiently, and appropriately, which is why it is important to have a crisis communications plan .

To streamline the organization and maintenance of these plans, it is often useful to keep them separate. Having redundant plans, after all, will only raise the administrative workload and increase the potential for errors.

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Business others what is the primary goal of business continuity planning? Learn how you can prevent your business from closing down due to unforeseen situations

What is the primary goal of business continuity planning? Learn how you can prevent your business from closing down due to unforeseen situations

CIO Bulletin 2023-08-09

Unexpected work delays can bankrupt a company, costing millions in lost revenue and expenses. All scouts know the famous scouting motto, “Always be prepared,” but ask yourself: when was the last time you applied it to your business functions?

The primary goal of business continuity planning for your company or organization is quite elementary — have a clear, actionable, and proactive plan in place for whatever unforeseen situation might come your way. This includes natural disasters, outages, cybersecurity attacks , pandemics, and more. We’ll walk you through some of the crucial pain points you need to address before you can declare your business continuity plan (BCP) 

What does business continuity mean?

Business continuity is the concept of organizations operating and concentrating on crucial business processes during alarming situations through advanced planning and preparation. These worrying circumstances include pandemics, economic crises, violent incidents, and other calamities that interfere with business operations. 

What is a business continuity plan?

A business continuity plan (BCP) outlines how a company will function throughout and following a crisis event. To ensure consistency, the BCP provides details on policies, procedures, and work instructions.

What is the primary goal of business continuity planning?

The main goal of business continuity planning is to support crucial business operations during a crisis. Planning ensures a company's ability to operate with limited resources or access to buildings. Planning for continuity also aims to minimize reputational or financial losses.   

A business continuity plan should detail several important steps that an organization must take to get ready for potential activity disruptions, including the following:

• Identify potential dangers for a company.
• Evaluate any potential effects on daily operations at the company.
• Establish a structure that enables crucial business operations to continue both during and after the event, and offer a way to reduce these potential problems.
• Decide which resources, such as personnel, tools, and backup locations, the organization needs to keep running.

What are the goals of business continuity planning?

Now that we know what the main goal of business continuity planning is, let's look at some of the objectives that companies can accomplish through it:

• Operations continuity assurance in the face of disruption entails ensuring that your company has the capacity, protocols, systems, and practices in place to minimize the most likely types of disruption.
• Increased risk mitigation as businesses can increase risk mitigation by establishing a risk management strategy and conducting regular appraisals and assessments of both old and new risks.
• Making sure your organization has the platforms (infrastructure, resources, technology, and capacity) it needs to continue operating in the event of a major disruption is known as having robust platforms.
• Better commercial health and competitiveness by building the organization's capacity to ensure that it can function more effectively and provide for its customers' needs than its rivals in the event of a major catastrophe.
• Reducing the likelihood of financial loss by increasing financial stability by making sure the company can efficiently recover from any catastrophic event
• Gained greater customer trust and dependability by ensuring the continuous availability of all essential services and goods in the event of a catastrophic incident.
• Securing your contribution to the national economy is important as businesses can support local employment and industry by continuing to make a contribution to the local, regional, and national economies.
• Boost your ability to handle disruptions that have an adverse effect on your business.
• Increased resistance to disruption, protection of sales, production, staff, and customers

How can you write a business continuity plan?

A business continuity plan is basically a list of actions that a company must take in unusual circumstances. After gathering data on the processes, tools, and important stakeholders, the plan must be written. Once this data has been gathered, you must write the plan using the available resources. However, the following are the general procedures for drafting a business continuity plan:

• Mission statement: The goals of the business, plans, grants, and budget for recovery and disaster preparation all need to be in writing.
• Setting up the governance: You must list the team members' roles, positions held, and contact information. A suggested addition is an organizational chart.
• Writing the plan's appendices and procedures: You must create the procedures, agreements, and tools.
• Training program: Both the training curriculum and the schedule need to be developed. You must configure the training data for both new training and refresher training.

Business continuity is an essential component of every company because it allows for uninterrupted operations. There will never be a good time to scale back or stop running your business. It has been estimated that large businesses lose $400,000 on average for each hour of downtime, making even brief outages costly. Establishing your own business continuity plan's objectives can make the difference between running a successful company for a long time and having to shut down. 

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What is the Primary Goal of Business Continuity Planning?

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Business continuity planning is one of the most important aspects of running a business. When something goes wrong - whether it's a natural disaster, power outage, or cyber attack - you need to have a plan in place to ensure that your business can continue to operate. The primary goal of business continuity planning is to protect your company's vital operations and ensure that your customers and clients are taken care of.

While it's impossible to predict everything that could go wrong, a well-crafted business continuity plan will help you be prepared for anything. By taking the time to create a plan and identify potential risks, you can protect your business - and your peace of mind.

There are several steps you can take to create a business continuity plan for your company.

First, you need to identify your company's vital operations. These are the functions that are essential to keeping your business running. Once you've identified these operations, you need to determine what risks could potentially disrupt them. This can include things like power outages, natural disasters, or cyber-attacks. Once you've identified the risks, you need to create a plan for how you will keep your vital operations running in the event of an interruption. This can include things like having backup power generators, storing critical data off-site, or implementing security protocols to protect against cyberattacks.

Take the time to create a business continuity plan, so you can ensure that your company is prepared for anything. By taking steps to identify risks and create a plan to protect your vital operations, you can give yourself - and your customers - peace of mind. So, what are you waiting for? Start planning today!

If you're not sure where to start, there are plenty of resources available to help you create a business continuity plan. No matter what approach you take, the important thing is that you have a plan in place so that you can keep your business running - no matter what.

What are you waiting for? Get started on your business continuity plan today! It could be the most important thing you do for your business.

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