Editing Business continuity planning (section)

{{Short description|Prevention and recovery from threats that might affect a company}}
[[Image:BCPLifecycle.gif|thumb|Business continuity planning life cycle]]

'''Business continuity''' may be defined as "the capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products or services at pre-defined acceptable levels following a disruptive incident",<ref>BCI Good Practice Guidelines 2013, quoted in [[Mid Sussex District Council]], [https://www.midsussex.gov.uk/media/1838/mid-sussex-business-continuity-plan.pdf Business Continuity Policy Statement], published April 2018, accessed 19 February 2021</ref> and '''business continuity planning'''<ref>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[Forbes]] |date=June 26, 2015 |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/06/26/how-to-build-an-effective-and-organized-business-continuity-plan |title=How to Build an Effective and Organized Business Continuity Plan}}</ref><ref>{{cite web  |website=American Bar.org (American Bar Association) |url=https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/events/disaster/surviving_a_disaster_a_lawyers_guide_to_disaster_planning.authcheckdam.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/events/disaster/surviving_a_disaster_a_lawyers_guide_to_disaster_planning.authcheckdam.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |date=2011 |title=Surviving a Disaster}}</ref> (or '''business continuity and resiliency planning''') is the process of creating systems of prevention and recovery to deal with potential threats to a company.<ref>Elliot, D.; Swartz, E.; Herbane, B. (1999) Just waiting for the next big bang: business continuity planning in the UK finance sector. Journal of Applied Management Studies, Vol. 8, No, pp. 43–60. Here: p. 48.</ref> In addition to prevention, the goal is to enable ongoing operations before and during execution of [[IT disaster recovery|disaster recovery]].<ref>{{cite magazine |magazine=Business Insurance Magazine |author=Alan Berman |date=March 9, 2015 |url=http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20150309/ISSUE0401/303159991/constructing-a-successful-business-continuity-plan |title=Constructing a Successful Business Continuity Plan}}</ref> Business continuity is the intended outcome of proper execution of both business continuity planning and disaster recovery.

Several [[business continuity standards]] have been published by various standards bodies to assist in checklisting ongoing planning tasks.<ref>{{cite web |title=Business Continuity Plan |publisher=United States Department of Homeland Security |url=https://www.ready.gov/business/implementation/continuity |access-date=4 October 2018 |archive-date=7 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181207233700/https://www.ready.gov/business/implementation/continuity |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Business continuity requires a top-down approach to identify an organisation's minimum requirements to ensure its viability as an entity. An organization's resistance to failure is "the ability ... to withstand changes in its environment and still function".<ref name=auto>{{Cite journal |author1=Ian McCarthy |author2=Mark Collard  |author3=Michael Johnson |title=Adaptive organizational resilience: an evolutionary perspective |journal=Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability |volume=28 |pages=33–40 |doi=10.1016/j.cosust.2017.07.005|year=2017 |bibcode=2017COES...28...33M }}</ref> Often called resilience, resistance to failure is a capability that enables organizations to either endure environmental changes without having to permanently adapt, or the organization is forced to adapt a new way of working that better suits the new environmental conditions.<ref name=auto/>