What is Business Continuity?

ISO 22301:2019 Security and resilience – Business continuity management systems – Requirements defines business continuity as:

[the] capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products and services within acceptable time frames at predefined capacity during a disruption 

Business Continuity seeks to build resilience through effective response capabilities, looking not only at how to deal with the disruption or emergency at the time, but also taking into consideration the long term effects on the organisation in terms of reputation, income etc. It’s important that Business Continuity arrangements are monitored and regularly reviewed. Post-incident debriefs are especially important to identify what worked well and where improvements could be made. The University has, therefore, adopted a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle to support continuous improvement.