The difference between Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
If the idea of ‘business rescue’ is new to you, then you’re probably feeling slightly overwhelmed and confused with all of the terminologies you’ve heard flying around. Take ‘business continuity and ‘discover recovery’, for example. What are they? And what’s the difference between the two?
Business continuity and disaster recovery are closely linked – in fact, they go hand-in-hand – but it’s important to recognise that they are not the same thing. In short, they both impact an organisation’s ability to remain operational and return back to normal following an unexpected incident. These events include the likes of cyber-attacks, human errors, natural disasters, or an unexpected financial crisis. Ultimately, incidents and events like this can happen at any moment, so it’s important that businesses of all sizes, within any industry, carefully plan ahead, so they are as prepared as possible.
In short, business continuity is having a more proactive approach to planning in the case of an emergency. While disaster recovery relates to a business reacting to the incident once it has happened. The key difference between the two is that business continuity is all about keeping your business functioning during an incident and immediately after. And disaster recovery is more about how your business responds to an event after it has occurred and how your business will return back to normal.
What is business continuity?
Ultimately, business continuity is when a company has a plan in place to deal with any uncertain events or situations that might occur. The idea of business continuity is to plan ahead so your organisation faces as little disruption as possible during an event and straight after.
What is disaster recovery?
Disaster recovery is the process a company follows after an uncertain incident has taken place. Disaster recovery plans outline how businesses will restore their processes back to normal within a certain amount of time following an event.
A good example is, if your office was to get flooded unexpectedly, your business continuity plan would state that employees were allowed to work remotely – so the business could continue as normal as possible. While your disaster recovery plan would detail how to restore your business and get your staff back working in the office as they were.
What happens if your business is facing a financial emergency?
It might be that the uncertain event that has occurred isn’t necessarily a natural disaster, cyber-attack, or human error, but it could be that your business faces unpredictable financial challenges.
If this is the case, it could be that as part of your business continuity and disaster recovery plan, you need a business rescue specialist to support you. Usually, these financial challenges last a short time. However, you should always contact a licensed insolvency practitioner to oversee the process by law where insolvency may exist.
Whether you are creating a business continuity plan, or are responding to a recent financial crisis, get in touch with insolvency.co.uk. We offer business recovery services, providing you with the essential advice and support you need to create a business rescue solution.