What is Business Continuity?

Flood. Cyber attack. Supply chain failure or losing a key employee. Disruptions to your business can happen at any moment.

Business continuity is about having a plan to deal with difficult situations, so your organization can continue to function with as little disruption as possible.

Whether it’s a business, public sector organization, or charity, you need to know how you can keep going under any circumstances.

Potential incidents to consider

•  Supply chain failure – You don’t have access to materials, goods or services
•  Utilities outage – You don’t have access to electricity, water or internet
•  Cyber incident – You have suffered a cyber attack and your website is down

These are just some of the many incidents an organziation needs to consider and plan for.

Make a plan

A good BC plan recognises potential threats to an organization and analyses what impact they may have on day-to-day operations.

It also provides a way to mitigate these threats, putting in place a framework which allows key functions of the business to continue even if the worst happens.

Example: Do not rely on one supplier of raw materials, what if that supplier goes out of business? If you purchase raw materials from two suppliers then you are potentially halving your risk.

What next?

The BCI has designed a short, self-paced eLearning course that will help you understand the importance of business continuity and get you starting to think about the incidents that might impact your own organization and what you can do to mitigate them. This short course takes up to 30 minutes to complete.

The BCI has many other free resources available to enhance your understanding of business continuity, see a few below to start …