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Risk, Governance & ComplianceIn review

Business continuity planning

BCP / Continuity planning · Business continuity management

Business continuity planning identifies critical activities and sets out how an organisation will keep or restore them during disruption, including roles, resources, communications and recovery priorities.

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Simply put

What it means in ordinary work

It is the plan for keeping essential work going when something goes wrong. It should be tested, not just written.

Why it matters

Supplier failure, cyber incidents, natural events and utility outages can stop operations. Continuity planning reduces the duration and impact of disruption.

A hypothetical in practice

A hypothetical food producer maps dependencies for its main packaging line, sets a recovery time objective, retains a qualified alternate supplier and tests a manual workaround during a planned exercise.

Hypothetical scenario, not a named organisation or real transaction.

Common pitfalls

  • A plan that assumes the same people, systems and suppliers will be available may fail in a real event.

  • Continuity is not only an IT recovery plan. It covers people, premises, suppliers and communication.

Regional lens

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As-of date for date-sensitive regional content: 5 November 2026. Read the review policy.