Identifying your business continuity plan objectives is an important first step to ensuring that your organization can effectively minimize the impact of an operational disruption.
In this guide, we identify 10 specific business continuity plan objectives that every organization should consider within their business continuity plan (BCP) – and why they’re important.
The Purpose of Business Continuity Plan Objectives
Documenting the objectives of a business continuity plan serves several purposes:
- Provides a high-level overview of what the plan aims to accomplish
- Identifies the scope and limitations of the plan
- Denotes which operationsthe planning pertains to (and which it doesn’t)
- Sets specific goals for restoring critical operations after a disruption (e.g. a Recovery Time Objective or RTO planning)
By clearly defining these objectives as part of the business continuity planning process, you increase the likelihood that you’ll achieve the core goal of your plan: preparing the business for a disaster scenario so you can minimize downtime when such an event occurs.
Aligning Objectives and Goals with the Business Continuity Plan Template
We aligned these objectives with the format of the Business Continuity Plan template developed by Ready.gov, an organization that marshals the resources of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its mission is to deliver materials to the public to improve the nation’s ability to respond to emergencies. This site includes a section devoted to business issues, which is where you can find the business continuity plan template.
These are the sections of the BCP template provided by Ready.gov:
- Program Administration
- Business Continuity Organization
- Business Impact Analysis
- Business Continuity Strategy & Requirements
- Manual Workarounds
- Incident Management
- Training Testing and Exercising
- Program Maintenance and Improvement
As you explore the objectives, note that we’ve recommended sections of the BCP template in italics. These suggestions should clarify which areas would best help you achieve each objective.
10 Critical Business Continuity Plan Objectives and Goals
Every business has unique needs and requirements when it comes to business continuity. However, these 10 objectives can be adapted to almost any organization:
- Identify Disaster Recovery Personnel
- Assess Risks and Impact
- Outline Existing Preventive Measures
- Define Recovery Protocols
- Identify Critical Data and Assets
- Identify Back-Up Locations and Resources
- Prioritize Emergency Communications
- Find Weaknesses and Propose Solutions
- Fulfill External Requirements
- Align Business Continuity Plan Objectives with Technology
Now, let’s dig deeper into each of these objectives to define the role they play in your business continuity planning.
Objective 1: Identify Disaster Recovery Personnel
BCP Template Section: Business Continuity Organization
When a crisis occurs, your organization should already know who is serving on the relevant disaster recovery team. This enables them to act quickly and avoid confusion. As part of your planning process, you’ll need to address these questions:
- Who is on your disaster recovery teams?
- What is each person’s role?
- How can they be reached in an emergency?
- Who are the alternates in the event the primary individual is unavailable?
Although you’ll have many employees in critical roles, one of the most important is the crisis management or disaster recovery coordinator. This person has the authority to make decisions, initiate recovery plan protocols and direct the recovery of business operations. The coordinator may also be responsible for communicating with the company’s insurance companies about policies related to disaster impacts, including their cyber insurance policy, which helps recover financial losses stemming from a cyberattack.
Objective 2: Assess Risks and Impact
BCP Template Section: Business Impact Analysis
One of the most important objectives of a business continuity plan is to calculate the likelihood and impact of business disruptions. When creating a BCP, you’ll conduct a risk assessment to identify any internal and external threats to your operations. You’ll incorporate the findings of this assessment into a Business Impact Analysis (BIA), which will define how the disruptions will adversely affect your operations.
Quantifying Risk
The primary goal of a Business Impact Analysis is to quantify the impact of every potential disaster scenario, including:
- The projected amount of damage it would cause
- The estimated recovery time
- The cost of operational losses
- Any associated costs, related disruptions or damage stemming from the incident
These elements of the BIA lay the foundation for the remainder of your BCP. All your recovery strategies and continuity plans derive from the work that occurs during this phase.
Producing a thorough BIA sometimes requires an outside perspective. Many businesses will need to seek the expertise of business continuity consultants who can help quantify the impact of various disruptions and propose solutions that meet their specific recovery objectives.
Establishing Essential Metrics: RTO & RPO
Another goal of developing a BIA is to determine your plan’s Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). The RTO is the amount of time a business has to restore a process and its associated applications following a serious event or outage. The RPO, on the other hand, indicates how much data an organization can lose following an incident before significant damage occurs.
Setting these objectives is critical because they help to guide your disaster recovery protocols and investments, such as data backup.
Objective 3: Outline Existing Preventive Measures
BCP Template Section: Business Impact Analysis
Another key purpose of your BCP is documenting the existing systems and procedures that help your organization meet its business continuity objectives.
It outlines the technologies, tools and protocols that you already have in place to prevent or mitigate the effects of a disaster. Technologies for premises-based data backup (e.g. Datto SIRIS) and cloud services backup are part of this preventive measures analysis.
Outlining existing continuity solutions helps to uncover gaps, set new objectives and determine which additional investments the company needs to make to achieve those goals. This documentation can then be used to seek investment capital from executive decision-makers.
Objective 4: Define Recovery Protocols
BCP Template Section: Business Continuity Strategies and Requirements
Setting clear, step-by-step recovery protocols is essential for achieving your continuity objectives.
Chances are good that at least some of your personnel won’t remember what they’re supposed to do when a disaster strikes. Your plan will provide them with specific procedures that they need to follow. Similarly, while your disaster teams should have a general idea of the necessary steps, the BCP serves as a document they can consult to ensure they follow the procedures exactly as they’re listed.
Keep in mind that this information is part of your disaster recovery plan, which is an element of your BCP but also a standalone document. It includes granular instructions for items such as:
- The definition of plan-triggering events
- Emergency alert and escalation procedures
- Steps in activating emergency response teams
- Team assembly points
All these elements are necessary to build well-constructed response protocols.
Objective 5: Identify Critical Data and Assets
BCP Template Section: Business Continuity Strategies and Requirements
One of the most important IT business continuity plan objectives is identifying where critical data and other assets are stored and how they’re managed. This allows recovery teams to follow a clearly defined recovery process. Plus, it provides clear instructions for other personnel if primary IT teams are unavailable.
Imagine, for example, a scenario in which you suddenly had no IT workforce. You’ll need, at the very least, a footprint for other personnel or stakeholders to follow.
An IT asset management system offers companies a way to automate asset tracking and reduce errors resulting from various issues, including:
- Out-of-date information
- Duplicates
- Inaccurate serial numbers
- Tag overlaps
Asset management systems also play a role in cybersecurity preventive measures. Without a complete asset management list, an organization might overlook a device that connects to the network without virus protection or up-to-date system patches.
Objective 6: Identify Back-Up Locations and Resources
BCP Template Sections: Business Continuity Strategies and Requirements; Incident Management
A disaster could make your facility unusable, so recovery teams need to know where and how to relocate operations. Your BCP will outline the availability of any back-up office space or explain what the team should do to quickly secure a new space.
There are several different types of disaster recovery backup sites, and they’re generally classified in one of four ways:
- Cold site: A facility that has adequate space and infrastructure (electric power, telecommunications connections and environmental controls) to support IT systems and may have raised floors and other attributes suitable for IT operations
- Warm site: A partially equipped office space that houses some or all of the system hardware, software, telecommunications and power sources
- Hot site: An office space that’s appropriately sized to support system requirements and configured with the necessary system hardware, supporting infrastructure and support personnel to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- Mobile site: A self-contained, transportable shell custom-fitted with specific telecommunications and IT equipment necessary to meet system requirements
In addition to addressing the temporary space for your operations, your BCP should also describe whether you have access to back-up physical resources, such as workstations and devices.
Objective 7: Prioritize Emergency Communications
BCP Template Sections: Business Continuity Strategies and Requirements; Incident Management
Who communicates recovery progress during an emergency? Who notifies the workforce? Who speaks to the media? By having a business continuity management policy in place, recovery personnel will know the answers to these questions and understand their roles in both internal and external emergency communications.
One of the goals of your crisis communications plan is to ensure all affected parties can stay connected throughout the disruption, especially if primary communication channels are unavailable. Within this plan, you’ll want to identify each of these parties along with their unique communication procedures. Examples
include:
- Company management, directors and investors
- Recovery teams
- Customers
- Employees and their families
- News media
- Community members
- Government elected officials, regulators and other authorities
- Suppliers
To provide a speedy response and a consistent message, assign a spokesperson for each of these audiences.
Objective 8: Find Weaknesses and Propose Solutions
BCP Template Sections: Testing, Testing & Exercising; Program Maintenance and Improvement
Continuity planning is more than just a static document. It’s an ongoing process, and you shouldn’t expect it to be perfect. However, it’s vital to address any holes and vulnerabilities by conducting ongoing risk assessments, identifying scenarios that would leave operations unprotected and developing action steps to address issues that require immediate attention.
Business continuity plan testing is important for ensuring your plan is current and responsive to changing conditions. There are four categories of testing:
- Plan review: Senior management and department heads analyze the BCP and discuss potential improvements.
- Tabletop exercise or structured walk-through: In this scenario-based, role-playing exercise, the objective is to ensure all critical personnel in your organization are aware of and familiar with the relevant portions of the BCP, as well as their role in a disaster.
- Walk-through drill or simulation test: This test can incorporate actual disaster recovery actions such as backup recovery, live testing of redundant systems, simulated responses at alternate locations and actual notification and resource mobilization.
- Functional or full recovery test: This is a complete test of your backup systems with parallel testing (running your live and backup systems in conjunction) or a full failover test (completely transitioning operations to your backup systems).
Your testing schedule depends on a variety of factors, including your company’s size, the pace of equipment upgrades and installations and the amount of turnover in your IT staff. Generally speaking, business continuity professionals recommend annual testing as the absolute minimum.
Objective 9: Fulfill External Requirements
BCP Template Sections: Business Continuity Strategies and Requirements; Incident Management
Following a major incident, your company may have to satisfy requirements from regulators, vendors, insurance companies or other external parties.
As noted by the Disaster Recovery Institute (DRI), there are over 120 regulations that mandate business continuity management across a variety of industries. They fall under regulatory authorities and legislation such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
In addition, requests for proposals (RFPs) increasingly include a requirement to demonstrate an active business continuity management program. Likewise, many insurers want to see evidence of a BCP as a part of the underwriting process.
Objective 10: Align Business Continuity Plan Objectives with Technology
Deploying the latest technologies for business continuity and disaster recovery is crucial for ensuring that organizations can effectively minimize disruptions. The following solutions and trends can help organizations maintain operational resilience and protect their bottom line.
- AI-Powered Risk Monitoring: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing risk management by providing real-time data feeds, predictive analytics and machine learning models to predict potential threats faster than ever before. For example, financial institutions are using AI to enhance their fraud detection capabilities, protecting against cyber threats that could disrupt operations.
- Resilience as a Culture: Creating a resilient organization isn’t just about systems and processes—it’s about people. In 2024, resilience is shifting from being a top-down initiative to a company-wide mindset. Teams across all departments are being trained to think critically about continuity, crisis management and disaster recovery.
- Supply Chain Visibility and Diversification: Businesses are prioritizing end-to-end visibility and diversifying their suppliers to reduce the risk of a single point of failure. For instance, companies are using supply chain management software to track every link in their supply chain and working with alternative suppliers in different regions.
- Cyber Resilience: With a record number of cyberattacks, businesses are focusing on cyber resilience. This involves implementing robust cybersecurity measures and regularly testing and updating these measures to ensure they are effective.
Business Continuity Planning Case Studies and Real-Life Examples
To illustrate the importance of setting clear objectives in your business continuity plan, let’s explore some real-life examples and case studies. These stories highlight how organizations have navigated disruptions and the lessons learned that can be applied to strengthen your own continuity plans.
- Ransomware Attack on Ireland’s Healthcare System: In 2021, Ireland’s healthcare system was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted operations for months. Despite having some disaster recovery methods in place, the attack highlighted the need for robust backup systems and comprehensive cybersecurity protocols.
- Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico’s Manufacturers: During Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s manufacturers with a well-documented BCP were able to respond effectively to the disaster. This case study underscores the importance of having an actionable plan that covers a range of scenarios.
- COVID-19 Pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for adaptable and flexible business continuity plans. Organizations that had plans in place were better able to manage widespread and prolonged disruptions.
Frequently Asked Questions about Business Continuity Plan Objectives
1. What are the objectives of a business continuity plan?
The main objective of a business continuity plan is to ensure an organization can continue operating after a disruptive event. The plan documents the risk and impact of different disruptions, along with systems and procedures for responding to those events.
2. What is the goal of business continuity?
The goal of business continuity is to maintain critical business functions during a disruptive event. Achieving business continuity requires having documented systems and protocols for minimizing downtime, protecting critical infrastructure and quickly restoring affected operations.
3. What are business continuity plan objectives?
Business continuity plan objectives establish the purpose of a business continuity plan (BCP) and the goals it aims to achieve. A BCP can also include specific objectives for recovering critical functions or systems, such Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) or Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs).
4. What is the primary objective of BCM?
The objective of BCM (business continuity management) is to proactively manage a business’s continuity planning. This includes identifying, updating and managing the documented systems and procedures that help a company minimize operating disruptions.
Conclusion
Setting business continuity plan objectives is essential for identifying the overall purpose of your plan andthe specific goals for restoring operations after an operational disruption. By defining these objectives, organizations can establisha clear roadmap for managing risks and ensuring a swift response to disruptive events.
Get the Technology Your Business Needs to Set Aggressive Continuity Objectives
See how today’s robust data backup solutions can help your organization prevent data loss and set aggressive recovery objectives. Request Datto SIRIS pricing for your company or schedule a meeting to speak to our business continuity experts at Invenio IT. Call (646) 395-1170 or email success@invenioIT.com.
