Business Continuity

What is Business Continuity?

Business Continuity (BC) is the capability of an organization to continue delivering products or services at acceptable levels following a disruptive incident. It involves planning, preparation, and processes to ensure resilience.

Key Components

Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

• Recovery procedures
• Contact lists
• Resource requirements

Disaster Recovery (DR)

• IT system recovery
• Data restoration
• Infrastructure failover

Crisis Management

• Communication plans
• Decision making
• Stakeholder management

Business Impact Analysis

RTO (Recovery Time Objective) Maximum acceptable downtime.

RPO (Recovery Point Objective) Maximum acceptable data loss.

MTPD (Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption) Longest survivable outage.

Planning Steps

1. Risk Assessment

   • Identify threats
   • Assess vulnerabilities

2. Business Impact Analysis

   • Critical processes
   • Dependencies
   • Recovery priorities

3. Strategy Development

   • Recovery options
   • Resource allocation

4. Plan Development

   • Procedures
   • Responsibilities

5. Testing

   • Exercises
   • Simulations

Compliance Requirements

• SOC 2 (Availability)
• ISO 22301
• Industry regulations
• Contract requirements