When family and friends ask me what I do for a living, I’m almost always greeted by the same blank, confused stare when I respond with “Business Continuity.” To me and others in our profession, the words seem to fit the job. However, even business-minded individuals do not always understand what business continuity means, let alone the important role it plays within organizations. To complicate matters even further, the focus of business continuity has evolved over recent years and will continue to do so as new issues such as cybersecurity and privacy compliance gain more attention. In the simplest sense, the goal of business continuity is to enable an organization to continue fulfilling its mission, vision and objectives, even during the worst of circumstances. Regardless of what Murphy’s Law, mother nature, or those with bad intentions throw our way, we have prepared our organization to succeed.
By now, you must be asking what it takes to build a successful Business Continuity program and how I can best explain it to my family and friends? I find that it’s less about the technical details and more about the strategy explained in my five steps to success: