Continuity and recovery strategies
People, workplace, supplier, IT, cloud, facilities and information strategies.
Business continuity strategies: selecting practical alternatives
A continuity strategy defines how the organization will sustain or recover a priority activity within its time and capacity needs.
Recovery strategies and sequencing
Recovery is easier when the organization knows which services should return first and which dependencies must be restored ahead of them.
People continuity: skills, roles and availability
Business continuity depends on people being available, informed, authorized and able to work under changed conditions.
Remote work as a continuity strategy
Remote work can reduce dependence on a facility, but it introduces dependencies on identity, devices, connectivity, collaboration tools and home working conditions.
Alternate sites and workspace continuity
Alternate workspace can range from another office to distributed remote work, depending on the activities and equipment that need to continue.
Supplier continuity and third-party dependencies
Supplier continuity extends business continuity beyond the organization's own buildings and systems.
Cloud and SaaS continuity
Cloud services can improve resilience, but they also create dependencies on provider regions, identity, internet connectivity, configuration and customer-side recovery decisions.
IT disaster recovery and business continuity
IT disaster recovery restores technology; business continuity defines which business outcomes that recovery must support and how quickly.
ICT readiness for business continuity and ISO/IEC 27031:2025
ISO/IEC 27031:2025 provides current guidance for preparing ICT to support wider business continuity objectives.
Backups, data recovery and continuity
Backups are one control within continuity. They protect certain data recovery needs but do not by themselves restore a complete business service.
Facilities and utility dependencies
Power, water, heating/cooling, access control, elevators, fuel, communications and landlord services can determine whether a workplace is usable.
Records and information continuity
Priority work needs access to accurate, current information even when normal systems or locations are unavailable.
Financial continuity and cash-flow dependencies
Disruption can affect invoicing, payroll, collections, banking access, purchasing and authorization even when core operations continue.
Customer service during disruption
Continuity planning should define what customers can still expect when capacity, channels or delivery times are constrained.