How does business continuity apply in the real world?

Imagine you're in charge of a lemonade stand. You've got everything set up - the table, the lemons, the cups - and you're ready to sell. But suddenly, a big gust of wind knocks over your stand! What do you do? 

Well, if you have a backup plan, like having extra supplies stored away or knowing where and how to quickly set up a new stand, you can keep selling lemonade without missing a beat - and ideally in an expected timeframe in relation to the disruption. This is business continuity in its most simplistic sense. It's all about having plans and systems in place to keep things running smoothly, even when unexpected disruptions occur. 

A good business continuity plan recognises potential threats to an organization and analyses what impact they may have on day-to-day operations. Potential disruptions could be a power outage, cyber-attack, pandemic, or a natural disaster. 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.

Defining business continuity

ISO 22301 is the international standard for Business Continuity Management Systems (BCMS). It provides a framework for organizations to plan, establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain, and continually improve a documented management system to protect against, reduce the likelihood of, and ensure recovery from disruptive incidents. Below we can see their definition of business continuity.

The video below further explains the importance of business continuity and also gives an overview of how organizations can embed processes and good practice to make organizations more resilient.

The BCI seeks to serve the global resilience community with its Good Practice Guidelines (GPG), which provides the practical methodology to help organizations build a best-in-class business continuity programme, adhering to the ISO 22301 standard.