Business continuity is the process of ensuring a company can keep running during and after unexpected events. It involves planning for potential risks and having strategies in place to maintain important operations and services—especially to minimize downtime and financial loss.

Conducting a business is like swimming against a current—as soon as you stop, you get pushed downstream. When your business stops running, you lose money. In addition to lost revenue, expenses associated with identifying and correcting disruptions will likewise impact your organization’s overall profit. The potential for brand and reputational damage is just as dangerous for your profit and lasting success, which is at risk during an unplanned event. And, in the post-Covid world, business leaders are much more aware of just how abruptly an unexpected event can grind everything to a sudden halt.

Unexpected events can and will happen. And when they do, successful organizations rely on business continuity planning to keep their operations running.

To respond well to disruptions, organizations need clear processes that come with a well-structured BCP. By detailing necessary steps for preparation and recovery, it keeps your operations running as smoothly as possible. To do this, a business continuity plan must include the following traits:

• Comprehensiveness
  For your business continuity plan to be effective, it needs to be able to cover all contingencies. This may be a difficult prospect, given that unexpected threats are, by definition, unexpected.
  As a rule of thumb, you will want your plan to cover basic possibilities like utility outages, natural disasters, cyber-attacks, human errors, and local and global pandemics. Prioritize these risks according to potential impact and likelihood of occurrence to ensure that your plan covers the right areas.
  It’s also wise to consider creating backup plans in the event that your primary plans fail. Understand the factors at play and what could go wrong and then plan accordingly. Business continuity plans may include crisis communications, crisis management, disaster recovery, and employee communications.
• Practicality
  It is worth mentioning that your business continuity plan is not valuable by itself; it must be something you can implement and act on when needed. Be realistic as you create your plans, and be sure to consider the capabilities of your organization and your employees. You should also plan for the needs and communication channels regarding reaching your customers.
• Efficiency
  In an emergency situation, complexity may be the enemy. In times of high stress and in the event of infrastructure failure, it will be even more difficult than usual for your people to perform tasks. Try to keep your plans as clear and to the point as possible so that those in charge can act on them quickly with the available resources.
• Adaptability
  Business continuity plans should be comprehensive, but they also need to allow room for adaptability. Disasters tend to evolve unexpectedly, and it is unlikely that you will have a plan that addresses every possible emerging situation. Train your people to respond intelligently to emergency situations, and include constant monitoring in your plan so that you can pivot your approach at a moment’s notice.

Simply put, your business continuity plan needs to address the realities of the situation by providing a clear, adaptable road map for your organization to follow. Here are the vital components of a VCP:

Strategy

Your plan must address how your people will complete standard tasks during the emergency. The strategy should focus on ensuring continuous business operations.

Organization

Your business continuity plan needs to lay out the responsibilities of different employees in the event of an emergency. It must also address issues related to structure and communications such as call trees. Call trees are communication systems that outline how information should be relayed to employees during a disruption.

Processes

The plan should identify and prioritize the most critical business processes, clearly outlining which ones are essential to keep your business running. This helps decision-makers know what resources and efforts are most vital and deserve attention first.

Technology

Along with processes, your business continuity plan will need to address the vital systems, networks, and technologies to backup data and applications. This safeguards your business against data loss and system failures during disruptions.

Vendor risk

Your business continuity plan should also consider how emergency situations may affect your third-party suppliers and vendors, and how their disruption could affect you. Likewise, understanding your vendors’ continuity plans will help you fill in some of the variables when it comes to creating your own plans.

Analyze information

To start, gather all necessary information about your business operations. This includes:

• Taking inventory of all assets
• Identifying dependencies
• Prioritizing and assessing risks

Anticipate potential disruptions by evaluating the likelihood and impact of various scenarios. This thorough analysis will provide a solid foundation for your plan.

Develop a plan

With the information gathered, develop a detailed plan that outlines the necessary steps. The plan should address:

• Critical processes, systems, and technologies
• Procedures for data backup, communication, and recovery
• Establishing controls to prevent disruptions

Clearly define roles and responsibilities, ensuring everyone knows what to do in an emergency.

Implement the plan

Implementing the plan involves several key actions:

• Choose who will oversee the plan, which may require creating a dedicated team or individual responsible for its execution
• Establish and test the controls put in place
• Monitor the system to ensure everything is working correctly

Effective implementation is critical to ensuring the plan's success.

Test the plan

Regular testing of your business continuity plan is another key responsibility. Conduct drills and simulations to ensure that all aspects of the plan work as intended, including:

• Recovering data
• Communicating with stakeholders
• Restoring operations

Testing helps identify any weaknesses in the plan and provides an opportunity to address them before an actual emergency occurs.

Maintain the Plan

A business continuity plan is not a one-time effort; it requires ongoing maintenance. Regularly review and update the plan to reflect any changes in your business operations or environment. Key maintenance activities include:

• Identifying root causes of any issues that arise
• Establishing new or enhanced controls to address issues

This continuous adaptation helps you keep your plan effective and relevant as you grow and change as an organization.

A business continuity plan should be tested at least annually so that it remains functional and up to date. However, more frequent testing may be necessary, especially if there have been significant changes in your business operations, technology, or external environment. Quarterly or biannual tests can help identify potential issues and keep the plan current, so you may opt for these more frequent reviews.

After any major business changes, such as mergers, acquisitions, or significant process updates, it is crucial to test the plan to address new risks and dependencies. Regular testing ensures that all team members are familiar with their roles and responsibilities and that the plan actually works.

There are several ways to test your BCP, including the following:

• Tabletop exercises
  Simulated discussion-based sessions where team members review and discuss their roles during an emergency scenario without performing actual operations.
• Walkthrough drills
  Step-by-step reviews of the business continuity plan where team members practice their roles and responsibilities in a controlled, discussion-based setting.
• Functional drills
  These drills test specific functions or processes, such as data recovery or communication protocols, to ensure they work as intended.
• Full-scale exercises
  Comprehensive tests that simulate a real-life disruption, involving all aspects of the business continuity plan and requiring participants to perform actual operations.
• Call tree tests
  Evaluations of the call tree system to ensure that all team members can be reached quickly and effectively during an emergency.

If 2020 taught us anything, it is that disruptions are inevitable, and resilience makes a substantial difference to our survival and competitive position. Unfortunately, the global pandemic caught many businesses by surprise, and when faced with an unprecedented emergency, a large number of them were unable to cope. For nearly 100,000 US businesses, temporary closures led to permanent shutdowns (Source: Fortune).

A business continuity plan provides prioritization and direction under pressure. When faced with unanticipated events and disruptions, business continuity supplies a road map for continued operation and fewer mistakes or surprises. This is important for several reasons:

Disruptions and outages are on the rise

If you feel like there have been more than the average number of disruptive events within the last few years, you may be right. Recent research suggests that outages which cause a significant disruption of service are becoming more severe, more costly, and longer duration.

With disruptions and outages on the rise, those businesses which can field an effective business continuity plan will have a clear competitive advantage over organizations that do not.

BCPs help prevent and minimize business disruptions

A business continuity plan will not prevent emergencies from occurring—an earthquake, a third-party data breach, or even a network hardware failure are all beyond the ability of a BCP to avert. What a business continuity plan can do, however, is prevent and minimize business disruption as a result of these emergencies.

An effective business continuity plan outlines the steps your organization will need to take to reduce the severity and length of disruptions. Your organization will have the direction it needs to mitigate potential damaging by including elements like:

• a thorough analysis of potential threats
• a listing of off-site and on-site emergency contact information
• detailing strategies and responsibilities for each emergent event

BCPs promote regulatory compliance

Business continuity is a good idea for any business in any industry. But for some critical organizations, having a business continuity plan is mandated by law. Businesses within the government, financial, and healthcare sectors, for example, are held strictly accountable for the state of their operations and data in the event of a disruption. Otros businesses in other industries may likewise be liable for damages as a result of failed business continuity.

Business continuity planning provides several advantages to your organization. Here, we detail several of the most noteworthy benefits:

Maintain business operations

A reliable business continuity plan will let you remain in operation even in a potentially disruptive emergency.

Preserve brand reputation

Effectively handling emergency situations without a noticeable drop in services demonstrates the quality of your business, improving customer satisfaction in the process.

Build customer confidence

Customers rely on your business for many things -- their digital services, food, access to money or payments, healthcare, communication -- and your continuity enables their continuity. They are also more aware than ever of the need for reliable data security in the organizations they choose to do business with. When disruptions occur, they expect businesses to bounce back quickly. Effective business continuity demonstrates an organization’s commitment to serving its customers, regardless of what might be happening.

Build employee confidence

When employees understand the steps they need to take in the event of an emergency, they are more confident in their company’s leadership, and more willing to trust its decisions. Additionally, as employees are trained in effective business continuity, they become more skilled at resolving smaller, less dire disruptions and emergencies and experience less stress under pressure.

Gain competitive edge

Despite the obvious advantages, many organizations have little-to-no business continuity in place. As such, when disruptions occur and those organizations are left unable to function effectively, their customers will likely flock to the businesses that can weather the storm. In fact, in a study of nearly 1,800 companies across a 25-year period, resilience in the face of emerging events accounts for approximately 30% of long-term performance (source: BCG Henderson Institute).

Mitigate financial risk

There are many business advantages associated with BCP, but make sure not to overlook the financial advantages. Financial losses as a result of a business disruption—including system failures, power loss, and data breaches—can have a significant negative impact on your organization. Business continuity management helps prevent or lessen this risk.

Management can use various tools and software to create and monitor their business continuity plans effectively:

• Risk assessment tools: Software that helps identify and evaluate potential risks, providing a detailed analysis of vulnerabilities and their potential impact on business operations.
• Business Impact Analysis (BIA) tools: Applications designed to assess the effects of disruptions on business functions and processes, helping to prioritize recovery efforts.
• Crisis management platforms: Integrated solutions that facilitate communication, coordination, and response during emergencies so that all stakeholders are informed and aligned.
• Data backup and recovery solutions: Tools that automate data backup processes and provide reliable recovery options, protecting and quickly restoring that critical information.
• Incident management systems: Software that tracks and manages incidents, from initial reporting through resolution.
• Plan management software: Applications that help develop, document, and maintain business continuity plans. Features usually include things like version control, access permissions, and audit trails.

ServiceNow offers a practical solution for business continuity planning through Business Continuity Management (BCM). This platform helps organizations plan and recover from disruptions with minimal impact on operations.

ServiceNow’s BCM tools include risk assessment, business impact analysis, and continuity planning. These features allow businesses to prioritize critical services and set recovery goals—they can be totally confident in the face of adversity. See how ServiceNow’s BCM tool can help your team; demo ServiceNow today!