Business continuity planning protects a company’s ability to operate, serve customers and continue generating revenue when an operational disruption occurs.
In this post, we define what business continuity planning really is, why it matters for growing organizations, and how technology—especially data backup and cybersecurity—plays a critical role in keeping businesses running.
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What is Business Continuity Planning?
Business continuity planning is the process of preparing your organization to continue operating during disruptive events. This planning is typically comprised of protocols, preventative strategies and recovery procedures, which are formally documented in a business continuity plan.
Continuity planning focuses on:
- Preventing operational disruptions
- Mitigating the impact of disruptions
- Minimizing downtime and financial loss
- Keeping critical systems & services available
- Maintaining access to data
- Supporting employees during disruptions
A strong business continuity strategy looks beyond a single potential incident. It considers how different disruptions affect operations and ensures there is a plan for every disaster scenario.
Why Business Continuity Planning Matters for Growing Businesses
When something goes wrong, the difference between companies that recover quickly and those that struggle usually comes down to one thing: planning.
Cyberattacks, system failures, human error and vendor outages don’t announce themselves in advance. When a business isn’t prepared for disaster, it faces a much longer and more costly recovery. Business continuity statistics show that more than 40% of businesses disrupted by a major unexpected disaster never reopen their doors.
Smaller and mid-sized businesses often assume continuity planning is something only large enterprises need. That assumption is risky.
Growing organizations typically:
- Have fewer redundant systems
- Depend on smaller IT teams
- Feel downtime more acutely
- Recover more slowly without preparation
Even short outages can disrupt cash flow, damage customer trust and strain teams. Business continuity planning helps reduce uncertainty and gives leadership a clear path forward when disruptions occur.
Developing a Business Continuity Plan
An organization’s business continuity planning is detailed in a formal document called a business continuity plan (BCP). This is used to document a business’s risk for disruption and outline its strategies for prevention and recovery.
The goal of a BCP is to ensure that there is reliable, up-to-date documentation on every aspect of a business’s continuity strategy.
Key components of a BCP:
- Objectives: Goals the plan aims to achieve and the aspects of the business it pertains to.
- Risk assessment: A list of all potential disruptive events, their causes and likelihood of occurring.
- Impact analysis: The business impact of potential disruptions, particularly measured by cost.
- Preventative strategies: Systems and strategies for preventing the disruptions identified.
- Response: Protocols for immediately responding to events to mitigate their impact.
- Recovery: Procedures for fully restoring the disrupted systems, services or operations.
A business continuity plan should also outline the technologies used to maintain continuity, such as data backup and security, as well as a schedule for reevaluating and updating the plan.
While every plan is unique, most organizations can use a business continuity plan template as a foundation for drafting their own document.
Business Continuity Planning vs. Disaster Recovery
Business continuity and disaster recovery are closely related, but they are not the same. Here are the main differences:
- Business continuity planning focuses on keeping operations running.
- Disaster recovery focuses on restoring systems and data after failure.
Disaster recovery supports business continuity, but it doesn’t replace it. As such, disaster recovery is often documented as a subset of a continuity plan or as its own, independent disaster recovery plan.
A continuity strategy considers people, processes and technology. Disaster recovery ensures the technology piece can be restored quickly enough to support operations. (See more differences between a DRP and BCP.)
Common Business Continuity Risks Businesses Face
Disruptions come in many forms, and most businesses face more risk than they realize.
Common threats include:
- Ransomware and other cyberattacks
- Hardware, software and infrastructure failure
- Data loss
- Cloud service outages
- Human error or misconfiguration
- Power and utility outages
- Flooding and severe weather events
- Vendor or supply chain disruptions
Many of these risks overlap. A single incident often triggers multiple failures at once.
Effective business continuity planning accounts for these realities, ensuring that there is a plan in place to prevent a lengthy disruption.
Real-World Business Continuity Scenarios
The need for business continuity planning becomes clearer when you look at real scenarios. Every day, businesses around the globe are disrupted by a wide range of events. Without adequate planning, these businesses face increased downtime, a longer recovery and higher costs.
Take the 2025 ransomware attack on Jaguar Land Rover, for example, which caused nearly half a billion in production stoppages and associated financial losses.
In contrast, organizations that invest heavily in continuity planning have procedures in place to react to almost any incident.
Examples include:
- A ransomware attack encrypts file servers, but a business maintains continuity by restoring data backups instead of paying the ransom.
- A cloud platform outage disrupts access to core applications, but the business leverages its SaaS backups to maintain critical services.
- A critical employee is unavailable during an incident, but the business continuity plan ensures that another team member is trained and ready to fill their shoes.
- A hardware failure takes production systems offline, but redundant systems are available to quickly fill the gap.
Each scenario tests a different part of your continuity strategy, which is why your BCP should include a thorough risk assessment and business impact analysis, updated at least once a year to ensure the latest threats are accounted for.
See more real-world examples and lessons learned:
How Backup and Recovery Support Business Continuity
When systems go down, recovery speed matters. Backups alone are not enough. If recovery takes days—or fails entirely—business continuity breaks down.
Effective continuity strategies rely on:
- Frequent, automated backups
- Immutable cloud backups in addition to local storage
- Regular recovery testing and backup verification
- Fast restore and virtualization options
This is where many plans fail. Many businesses assume backups will work without verifying recovery timelines. Continuity depends on proven recovery, not assumptions, which is why businesses must deploy robust data backup and disaster recovery solutions – especially in the age of ransomware and AI-driven cyberattacks.
The Role of Datto BCDR in Business Continuity Planning
Technology plays a central role in modern business continuity planning, particularly when it comes to data backup.
BCDR solutions like Datto SIRIS are designed to support continuity by combining local backup, cloud replication and rapid recovery capabilities in a single, unified system.
Datto SIRIS helps businesses:
- Instantly restore protected systems with virtualization
- Recover files destroyed by ransomware, hardware failure or human error
- Test recovery without disruption
- Reduce downtime and data loss
By supporting fast recovery, BCDR solutions help turn major disruptions into manageable interruptions. But since not all data backups are made equally, businesses must be sure to adopt robust systems that allow for aggressive recovery time objectives (RTOs). Organizations can request Datto SIRIS pricing here.
How Cybersecurity Influences Continuity
While backups are essential for recovery, they are only part of a larger continuity planning framework. Cybersecurity is the proactive shield that can prevent disruptions from malware and cyberattacks, ensuring you don’t have to trigger that recovery process in the first place.
Today’s top threats include:
- Phishing emails and social engineering
- Ransomware
- Fileless attacks
- Zero-day attacks
- Business email compromise (BEC)
Any of these threats can cause a costly break in continuity, even when they arise from a single compromised inbox. This is why businesses must deploy advanced security tools (beyond traditional antivirus alone) to detect today’s emerging threats and stop them in their tracks.
For smaller companies without their own security operations center (SOC), an MDR solution (managed detection and response) like RocketCyber MDR provides robust, automated cybersecurity to safeguard all endpoints, servers and cloud assets, backed by human intelligence. (Request RocketCyber MDR.)
Putting Your Planning to the Test
Writing the BCP isn’t enough. Businesses must periodically reevaluate and test their business continuity planning to identify any gaps, such as outdated contact lists, slow recovery times or backup failures, before a real emergency occurs. Whether through tabletop exercises or full-scale recovery simulations, regular testing transforms your strategy from a theoretical “best-case scenario” into a proven, repeatable process.
For tips on how (and what) to test within your planning, try these continuity plan testing scenarios and exercises.
When to Work with a Business Continuity Partner
Business continuity planning is not a one-time exercise. As businesses grow, systems change. New risks emerge. Technology evolves. Plans must adapt.
Working with an experienced IT partner helps ensure continuity strategies stay aligned with real-world operations. The right partner helps organizations:
- Identify continuity gaps
- Align technology with risk tolerance
- Maintain and test recovery systems
- Adjust strategies as the business evolves
This is especially important for organizations without dedicated continuity staff. By leveraging business continuity services from an experienced partner, businesses can ensure they have the right technologies for their infrastructure and objectives.
Frequently Asked Questions about Business Continuity Planning
1. What is the goal of business continuity planning?
The goal is to keep essential operations running during and after disruptions, minimizing downtime and business impact.
2. Is business continuity planning only for large companies?
No. Small and mid-sized businesses often benefit the most because they feel downtime more acutely and recover more slowly without preparation.
3. How often should business continuity plans be reviewed?
Plans should be reviewed regularly and updated whenever systems, vendors or operations change.
4. Does business continuity planning include cybersecurity?
Yes. Cyber threats are one of the most common causes of operational disruption and must be accounted for.
Strengthen Your Business Continuity Strategy – Before It’s Too Late
With the right business continuity planning, technology and support, organizations can reduce downtime, protect operations and recover faster—without guesswork. Schedule a call with one of our data protection specialists at Invenio IT to explore solutions for your business, or contact us by calling (646) 395-1170 or emailing success@invenioIT.com.
