Keep operating while the systems are still coming back.
Continuity planning for the business process, not just the infrastructure — who does what, how the work continues manually, and how you communicate while recovery runs.
Technical recovery is only half the answer
Disaster recovery restores systems. It does not tell the order desk how to take orders in the meantime, or who is authorised to speak to customers, or how work done on paper gets back into the system afterwards. Businesses that recover well have answered those questions before the incident.
- A recovery plan exists for systems, and none for how the business keeps operating.
- Nobody has agreed who decides to invoke the plan.
- There is no manual fallback for the processes that cannot simply wait.
- Customer and regulator communication would be improvised on the day.
What we build
A continuity capability covering the operating process: which functions must continue, how they continue without their systems, who holds which role, and how the backlog is reconciled afterwards.
- A business impact analysis identifying which functions genuinely cannot pause
- Manual or degraded-mode procedures for those functions
- A named invocation authority and a defined escalation path
- Communication templates for staff, customers and where relevant regulators
- A reconciliation procedure for work captured outside the systems
- A rehearsal involving the business, not only the technical team
How it runs
Built with the operating teams, because they are the ones who will execute it.
- 01Analyse business impact
Which functions must continue within hours, which can wait days, and what each depends on.
- 02Design degraded modes
How critical functions operate without their systems — what is captured, on what, and by whom.
- 03Assign roles
Invocation authority, incident coordination, communications, and a deputy for each because people are unavailable.
- 04Prepare communications
Templates and channels agreed in advance, so the message is not drafted under pressure.
- 05Rehearse with the business
A tabletop or live exercise involving the operating teams. Plans not rehearsed with the people who execute them do not work.
What changes once it is running
What continuity planning at the process level produces.
The business keeps trading
Critical functions continue in a degraded mode rather than stopping until systems return.
Decisions are pre-made
Who invokes, who communicates, who decides — settled in advance rather than in the first confused hour.
Nothing is lost in the gap
Work captured manually has a defined route back into the systems once they return.
Obligations are met
Where contracts or regulation require continuity arrangements, there is evidence rather than intent.
How an engagement is shaped
This is business work with a technical component, not the reverse.
Business impact analysis
Two to three weeks with the operating functions establishing what truly cannot pause. The answer is usually a shorter list than expected.
Plan and prepare
Degraded-mode procedures, role assignments and communications, written with the teams who will use them.
Rehearse and review
An exercise involving the business, then periodic review as the operation changes.
Common questions
The things buyers ask before they commit. If yours is not here, it is a good first question for the assessment.
- Is this not just a document?
- It is if it is never rehearsed. The rehearsal is what turns a plan into a capability, and it is where the gaps — the missing phone number, the person with no deputy — actually surface.
- How does this relate to disaster recovery?
- Disaster recovery restores the technology. Continuity keeps the business operating while that happens. Doing only the first leaves the operating teams improvising.
- Do we need this if we are a small business?
- The analysis is proportionate to size, but the questions are the same. A small business usually has fewer people to absorb an outage, which makes the pre-agreed fallback more important rather than less.
If your core system stopped this morning, what happens?
If the answer is mostly about IT, the business half of the plan is missing.