What is Business Continuity

Business Continuity, also often referred to as Disaster Recovery, is the process of keeping your business running in the event of the loss of some part (or all) of the business infrastructure and staff.

Many companies are required by their bank, their clients or their investors to have a business continuity plan. It can be very daunting to create one, and knowing where to start is the key.

First of all, it is imperative to know where your business critical information is stored, and I don't just mean your computer data. This could include cheque books, bank cards, patent documentation... The key to any business recovery system is knowing where that information is, how much can be replicated given time, and what your business would fail without.

You can never plan for all eventualities. If disasters were planned, we could plan not to be there, but life doesn't work that way, so I recommend not listing problems and responses, but practical solutions that can be applied, that can be tested in advance, and when a problem happens, it becomes a matter of choosing the right solution given the known circumstances.

So what do you need to know in order to create a list of solutions?