Business continuity software provides a centralized digital platform for maintaining business continuity plans, keeping them updated based on the organization’s needs. Business continuity, or business continuity management, comprehensively identifies scenarios that impact organizations negatively and cost them time and money. Business continuity software accounts for financial, operational, and physical risks and helps organizations decrease company financial loss by making intensive preparations for disasters or setbacks.
Also Read: How to Create a Business Continuity Plan
What affects business continuity?
Internal and external change of any kind impacts business operations. From natural disasters or executive leadership turnover to supply chain interruptions and skyrocketing demand, business continuity planning seeks to identify risks, then prepare every area of the organization to respond to those risks. Key areas of consideration include:
- Finances
- Stored data
- Physical premises and technology (offices, data centers, servers, networks)
- Products (design, inventory, shipping)
- People management (hiring, terminating, employees)
- Relationships with third-party vendors or partners
For example, financial risks include the sales pipeline and deals, the possibility of theft, and how many sales representatives the company has at a given time. A natural disaster could damage or completely destroy a company’s data center. Business continuity planning takes possibilities like these into account and determines what a company will do to remain operational.
Features of business continuity software
To mitigate risk and plan for change, business continuity platforms commonly offer:
- Third-party vendor risk management
- Backup and disaster recovery and recovery planning
- Ransomware detection
- Test scenarios
- Risk and impact assessments
- Gap analysis
Read Next: Top Business Continuity Software for 2021
