In 2025, cyberattacks, climate events, labor disruptions, and technology failures are not rare. They’re recurring disruptions that every business must be ready to navigate. For leadership teams, the question isn’t whether you need a Business Continuity Plan (BCP), but whether your plan is simple, understood by all, and relevant to how your organization operates today.
An IT professional might say continuity is about backups. That’s not wrong, but it’s far from the whole picture.
There are two major reasons why:
- Business continuity is about keeping the business running during disruption, which is more than a technical challenge.
- Less than half of today’s business data is stored on local infrastructure. Instead, the majority lives across a range of cloud platforms and external services.
I often say that when it comes to business continuity planning, the journey is the destination.
A 50-page document on a shelf rarely proves helpful in an actual emergency. The greater value lies in the process; taking time to understand your critical operations, map dependencies, and preparing contingency plans that you can adapt and rehearse long before a crisis hits.
Business Continuity Planning Has Evolved
Many middle-market organizations first developed BCPs in the early 2000s, when data lived on servers and filing cabinets inside physical office space. Plans often involved tape backups, reciprocal workspace agreements, and an annual disaster recovery drill.
That approach is now obsolete, for three reasons:
- Critical data is actually stored in cloud platforms like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, ERP, payroll, and HR systems.
- Remote work is not a fringe benefit; it's the standard operating model.
- Key workflows depend on third parties: suppliers, vendors, APIs, and tools rarely accounted for in legacy BCPs.
Modern continuity isn’t just about “how fast can we restore data?” It’s about:
- Can we maintain customer service without access to phones, systems, or office space?
- Who has the authority to make decisions if key leaders are unavailable?
- How do we communicate with staff and customers during a disruption?
BCP software has matured to help companies meet these realities, but the real shift must be in mindset. It’s time to move beyond check-the-box compliance and, “this can’t happen to me” or “we would figure it out.” Instead, take continuity seriously as a core leadership function.
One Thing You Should Do Today: Make One Person Accountable
Appointing a formal owner of a BCP program a simple and powerful step, but surprisingly uncommon. In many organizations, BCP responsibilities are fragmented: IT manages backups, HR maintains the phone tree, compliance owns the policy, and nobody has the full picture.
Assigning ownership doesn’t mean hiring someone new. It means designating a leader - typically from IT, operations, or risk - who can coordinate planning, keep the materials current, and lead the response when an incident occurs.
Without a named owner and some accountability, plans become stale. When that happens, teams discover at the worst possible moment that their response playbook is useless, which exposes the organization to an even greater risk of financial and reputational loss.
One Goal for the Next 12–18 Months: A Business Impact Analysis
Within the next year or so, conduct and document a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) across all major departments.
A BIA is the foundation of any continuity program. It identifies which processes are most critical, what dependencies they rely on, and how quickly they must be restored.
For example, your customer billing system may need to be restored within 24 hours. Internal expense reports can probably wait a week. Your sales team might rely on data housed in a third-party CRM. A single regional vendor might limit your supply chain.
You don’t have to overcomplicate it.
To be clear: the BIA concept was originally developed for large, complex enterprises, where even the CEO or CIO doesn’t know every critical dependency. For smaller firms, it may feel like overkill.
The spirit of the exercise is this:
- Don’t assume you already know everything. Take time to ask, “Are we missing anything?”
- Align the team. In a crisis, clarity on what matters most is essential. A BIA (even if it’s a single PowerPoint slide) ensures everyone is on the same page about priorities.
Most BCP software (that you pay for) includes BIA templates, but a well-structured spreadsheet can be a great starting point too.
Three Practical Ways to Build a Continuity Program
1. Entry Level: Microsoft 365, SharePoint, or Google Workspace
You already own the tools to begin. With planning and discipline, you can:
- Document plans in SharePoint or Google Drive
- Use spreadsheets to track BIAs and recovery steps
- Set calendar reminders for periodic reviews or drills
- Centralize emergency contacts, alternate workflows, and vendor details
This approach works well for smaller teams or cost-conscious organizations. It also builds the muscle memory needed to upgrade later.
2. Maturing: Cyber Insurance-Sponsored Tools
Many cyber insurance providers now bundle software access into their coverage. For example, Beazley includes licenses to Cygnvs in certain policies. These platforms often support secure communications, incident tracking, and continuity planning.
If you carry cyber coverage, it’s worth checking what you’re already entitled to. In some cases, you may be paying for tools you’re not using.
3. Business Class: Dedicated Business Continuity Platforms
Examples: Quantivate, Preparis
These are purpose-built, user-friendly platforms designed to help mid-sized organizations scale their continuity efforts. They provide:
- Structured BIA templates
- Playbook creation and testing workflows
- Cross-departmental coordination tools
- Audit trails and reporting for compliance
Quantivate and Preparis are especially popular among banks, healthcare groups, advanced manufacturers, and not-for-profits that need audit-ready plans but don’t want enterprise-level complexity or cost.
This is the highest level of maturity, and usually worth the investment once the fundamentals are in place.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
1. Treating backups as the full plan
Recovering files isn’t the same as maintaining operations. Communication plans, manual workarounds, and decision-making structures are just as critical.
2. Putting all the burden on IT
While IT is central to recovery, continuity is a company-wide responsibility. Finance, HR, and operations all have a role to play, especially if their applications are offline.
3. Letting the plan sit on a shelf
A BCP must be a living document: tested, updated, and maintained at least annually. Business processes change; so should your plan.
4. Skipping tabletop exercises
Why wait for a real incident to reveal Lessons Learned? Simulating an emergency in a discussion-based scenario is a low-cost, high-impact way to simultaneously train the team, and discover gaps, with much lower stakes.
Final Thought: Resilience Is a Leadership Issue
Business continuity isn’t just about computers, credentials, or compliance. It’s about confidence.
When your team knows how to respond, and your customers know you’re prepared, you build trust that extends beyond the crisis. You reinforce your organization’s reliability and readiness.
Technology has made the risk landscape more complex, but it’s also made it easier than ever to plan. Whether you’re just getting started or ready to mature your program, the goal is the same: reduce chaos when the unexpected happens.
If you haven’t invested time in continuity planning this year, put it on the calendar.
If you’re not sure where to start, Kreischer Miller’s Technology Solutions Group is here to help.