What is Business Continuity?

To protect your business, be sure to understand what business continuity really means.

Business continuity means more than one thing. It’s more than just IT — in a major disaster, continuity also means ensuring that employees are protected and can resume work from an alternate location if an office is destroyed or inaccessible but data and computing are fundamental to modern business.

Even within IT, the meaning of business continuity needs to be defined clearly.

Let’s start by defining what business continuity is NOT.

Business Continuity is not Data Backup.

A data backup is the result of copying or archiving files and folders for the purpose of being able to restore them in case of data loss. Data loss can be caused by many things ranging from ransomware, computer viruses and hardware failures to fires, floods, theft, and many other causes.

Business Continuity is not Disaster Recovery. 

Disaster recovery is the area of security planning that deals with protecting an organization from the effects of significant negative events. Backups of data and systems are among the most important things you need to be prepared to recover.

Business Continuity is not Natural Disaster Planning.

A disaster for your business need not be a global news event like a hurricane, earthquake, tsunami, or meteor strike. It might be ransomware, a backhoe cutting the Internet cable that connects your headquarters, call center, or data center, or a disgruntled employee wiping your customer database.

Business Continuity = Backup + Disaster Recovery + More

So, all the other answers were correct? Yes, but none is sufficient on its own. You need backup, you need disaster recovery, and you need resilience against smaller “disasters” like accidentally deleted files and database records.