Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan Template

What Is the Difference Between a Disaster Recovery Plan and a Business Continuity Plan?

The company management should prepare both the Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan at the same time and often implement the procedures simultaneously. Both concepts focus on getting the organization back to where it was before the issue occurred and may overlap. For instance, after a flood happens, the Disaster Recovery Plan should assist the managers in getting all the employees out of the building as soon as possible and obtaining a replacement for equipment, supplies, and goods, while Business Continuity means finding a safe place for the employees to work from. Yet, there are crucial differences between these two notions:

1. Disaster Recovery covers arrangements introduced to handle the return to normalcy after a serious incident or damage . Business Continuity, on the other hand, constitutes the maintenance of the regular business operations during the crisis - for example, an outage or cyberattack. The former refers to the restoration while the latter helps the managers and directors to preserve the status quo even in the most difficult circumstances.
2. While Business Continuity mostly concerns the top executives of the organization who will adopt appropriate measures to bring the company back on track, Disaster Recovery involves all employees who will have to follow strict regulations in case of fire or natural hazards . Make sure you distribute necessary manuals among the employees and include them in drills and emergency training to ensure no one is caught off guard in case of a major issue.

A proper BCDR Plan will include the list of the company leaders entrusted with enforcing the protocols and their contact information, roles and duties of every administrator and employee, description of communication methods in case the traditional calls or messages are impossible, the hierarchy of the management and provisions that prescribe the delegation of authority, requirements and strategies to keep the business afloat - relocation to safety, recovery of equipment and paper records, assessment of the damage, and approximate schedule the company should follow to go back to the way things were. You should refer to your insurance policy as well - the payout you will receive will help you to restore the business and keep your financial security.

Haven't found what you're looking for? Take a look at the related templates below:

• Generic Business Plan;
• Business Organizational Chart;
• Business Budget.