Business continuity

Business continuity consulting that holds up under pressure

A continuity plan is only useful if people can follow it on a bad day. We run the business impact analysis, write a plan your teams can use and test it with them, so you know what keeps operating, what stops and how long recovery takes.

Book a scoping call See what’s included
  • Business impact analysis and recovery priorities
  • Business continuity plans people can follow
  • BCP testing and tabletop exercises
Hand stopping a line of falling dominoes

Plans built from your operations

Priorities set with your business owners

Tested with your people

Exercises that find gaps before a real disruption does

Connected to recovery

Plans backed by DR, backup and recovery engineers

Two colleagues working through a scenario at a computer

Continuity vs disaster recovery

Business continuity is broader than IT recovery

Disaster recovery brings systems and data back. Business continuity keeps the organization operating while that happens: how orders are taken, how payroll runs, who talks to customers and regulators, and which processes can wait.

Our business continuity consulting produces that plan. It starts with a business impact analysis that ranks your processes by the cost of downtime, sets recovery objectives for each and identifies the people, systems, suppliers and locations they depend on. Those objectives then drive the technical side, including backup and disaster recovery.

Business continuity services

What our business continuity planning services include

Business impact analysis

Interviews with process owners to rank critical functions, set recovery time and recovery point objectives and map dependencies.

Business continuity plan

A written plan with roles, decision points, communications, workarounds and recovery steps for each critical function.

BCP testing and exercises

Walkthroughs and scenario exercises that test the plan with the people who will use it, with a report on what to fix.

Tabletop exercises

Backup and disaster recovery

DRaaS and managed backup that meet the recovery objectives set in your continuity plan.

Backup and DR

Ransomware and cyber recovery

Plans and engineers to contain an attack, restore systems and get back to normal operations.

Cyber recovery

Recovery retainers

Incident response and cyber recovery retainers put in place before you need them.

Retainers

How it works

How a business continuity engagement runs

1

Business impact analysis

We interview process owners, rank critical functions and agree on how long each can be down and how much data it can lose.

2

Strategy and gaps

We compare those objectives with your current capabilities and recommend workarounds, recovery options and investments.

3

Write the plan

We write the business continuity plan with your teams, including roles, contact lists, communications and step-by-step procedures.

4

Test and maintain

We exercise the plan with your people, report what worked and what didn’t and schedule regular reviews and retests.

Deliverables

What you get

  • Business impact analysis report
  • Recovery time and recovery point objectives by function
  • Dependency map of systems, suppliers and locations
  • Gap analysis and recommended recovery strategies
  • Business continuity plan and crisis communication plan
  • Exercise scenario, after-action report and fixes
  • Plan maintenance and retest schedule
  • Evidence that supports SOC 2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA

Case study

Disaster recovery for a major golf manufacturer

A global golf manufacturer that had just spun off from its parent company depended on its manufacturing and distribution network continuing to operate, whatever disaster it faced.

We designed and deployed a highly available disaster recovery site, re-architected the network while it kept running and now provide managed network and security services with 24/7 monitoring.

  • A disaster recovery plan that can be enabled within three minutes
  • Virtually no loss of data on failover
  • A recovery site that can run as production when needed
Read the case study

FAQ

Business continuity questions

Business continuity consulting typically includes a business impact analysis, a recovery strategy, a written business continuity plan and testing of that plan. We can also connect the plan to the technical recovery capabilities that support it.

A business impact analysis identifies your critical business functions, what they depend on and how long each can be disrupted before the damage becomes serious. It produces recovery time and recovery point objectives that guide every other continuity decision.

Disaster recovery restores IT systems and data. Business continuity covers the whole organization: people, processes, suppliers, locations and communications while recovery is under way. You need both, and the continuity plan sets the targets disaster recovery has to meet.

At least once a year and after major changes such as a new system, an acquisition or a move. Many frameworks, including SOC 2 and ISO 27001, expect documented testing. Tabletop exercises are a practical way to start.

Cost depends on the number of business units, locations and critical processes in scope, how much existing documentation you have and whether you want testing included. We scope it with you and give you a fixed proposal.

It should. Ransomware can take out systems and backups at the same time, so your plan needs manual workarounds and a tested recovery path. For hands-on recovery, see ransomware and cyber recovery.

Book a scoping call

Know how your business keeps running

Tell us about your organization and what worries you most, and we’ll scope a business impact analysis and continuity plan.

  • Scoping call with a continuity consultant
  • Fixed proposal for analysis, plan and testing

Prefer email? Write to [email protected] or call (858) 712-0040.

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