Business Continuity Planning - BCP

Business continuity planning is coming up with a plan to handle all foreseeable issues in a way that keeps the business afloat.

It's disaster planning, if you will, generally done by a team on behalf of the whole comany.

First the company identifies the risk so it knows wheat it's trying to avoid, or recover from if it were to happen. Then the company implements a plan to deal with these scenarios, and puts the plan into place. This may involve the whole company rather than just the team.

The team can also run an analysis to test the potential damage of each scenario they identify. For instance, what happens if their computer system does down? How much does each inoperational day cost them? This analysis tells the team which risks to focus on the most (the most costly, usually).

For example, if the loss of their computer system is the main threat, the team may decide the company needs a back-up system, and use that analysis to decide how much they can justify investing in it.