Icologiq Knowledge · Concept
Business Continuity
The capability to continue priority products and services at an acceptable level during disruption and to recover in a controlled way.
Also known as:
business continuity management, BCM, business continuity planning, continuity management
At a glance
Type
Concept
Topic
Enterprise IT
Applies to
Cross-industry
Current version
Status
Last reviewed
September 29, 2026
Definition
Business continuity is the organizational capability to prepare for disruptive events, continue priority products and services at an acceptable predefined level, and recover in a controlled way. It combines governance, risk assessment, continuity strategies, response arrangements, testing and improvement. ISO 22301 provides the international management-system framework for business continuity.
Why it matters
For organizations relying on SaaS and eQMS platforms, business continuity includes more than infrastructure uptime. Quality and IT leaders need to understand how records remain accessible, how critical workflows continue, how incidents are communicated, what recovery commitments exist, and what happens if a supplier can no longer provide the service. That connects continuity directly with supplier governance, information security, service levels and data exit planning.
Understand which processes, systems, people, suppliers and information are needed to sustain priority operations.
Identify critical activities and dependencies
•
Set practical recovery objectives and tolerances based on business, quality, safety and compliance consequences.
Define impact and recovery priorities
•
Define alternative arrangements, redundancy, backups, manual workarounds or supplier measures appropriate to the risk.
Establish continuity and recovery strategies
•
Make decision rights, escalation and stakeholder communication clear before a disruption occurs.
Define roles and communication
•
Use scenarios or recovery tests to reveal gaps in assumptions, access, data restoration and coordination.
Exercise and test
•
Update continuity arrangements after tests, incidents, organizational changes or changes in critical dependencies.
Review and improve
•
Concept explained
Building resilience around critical services
Business Continuity prepares an organization to maintain or restore priority activities when disruption occurs. For SaaS and regulated operations, continuity depends on understanding critical dependencies, recovery objectives, responsibilities, communication and evidence that arrangements have been tested.
The international standard specifying requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving an information security management system.
ISO/IEC 27001
Standard
· Enterprise IT
A management system for establishing, operating and continually improving controls that protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information.
Information Security Management System
Concept
· Enterprise IT
A cloud service model in which users access provider-hosted applications while the provider operates the underlying infrastructure and application environment.
Software as a Service
Technology
· Enterprise IT
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