Business Continuity - more than disaster recovery

Business continuity requires more than just a plan to recover from a disaster. Business continuity policies, planning, and activities allow an organization to continue critical operations even during a business disruption. Business continuity generally consists of three areas:

• Business resumption planning (business operations recovery)


• Disaster recovery planning (technical aspects of recovery)


• Crisis management (organization's response)

A top down approach to business continuity planning helps an organization minimize the impact of a disruption on business operations. More than just recovering from a data center outage, continuing business operations requires the involvement of business units and upper management.

Risk management and a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) provide management with a planned approach to managing a disruption caused by a fire, flood, earthquake, terrorism, or other natural disaster. When recovering from a disaster, the organization's image and reputation must be protected. An employee, designated as the spokesperson for the organization, allows a consistent message to be delivered to employees, customers, and the media.

Business continuity plans reduce the cost of a business disruption. Many organizations use risk assessments to help them itentify areas that can lead to disruptions in business operations.