Business Continuity Planning

Business Continuity Planning is the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an organization will recover & restore partially or completely interrupted critical urgent functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption. The logistical plan is called a business continuity plan.... In plain language, BCP is working out how to stay in business in the event of disaster. Incidents include local incidents like building fires, regional incidents like earthquakes, or national incidents like pandemic illnesses. BCP may be a part of an organizational learning effort that helps reduce operational risk associated with lax information management controls. This process may be integrated with improving information security and corporate reputation risk management practices. BCP "identifies an organization's exposure to internal and external threats and synthesizes hard and soft assets to provide effective prevention and recovery for the organization, while maintaining competitive advantage and value system integrity”. It is also called business continuity and resiliency planning (BCRP). A business continuity plan is a roadmap for continuing operations under adverse conditions such as a storm or a crime. In the US, governmental entities refer to the process as continuity of operations planning (COOP). Any event that could impact operations is included, such as supply chain interruption, loss of or damage to critical infrastructure. As such, risk management must be incorporated as part of BCP. Business continuity management standard provides a best practice framework to minimize disruption during unexpected events that could bring business to a standstill.