Business Continuity plan vs. Disaster Recovery Plan

What is the difference between a business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan?

A business continuity plan and disaster plan are two very different strategies, but they both play an important part in ensuring the safety of your organisations information systems and operations.

The business continuity plan is essentially an action plan on what your organisation will do in the event of a disaster. This plan will ensure that your business can continue essentially as normal. It has a wider scope than the disaster recovery plan.

The disaster recovery plan is only a section of the business continuity plan. This plan is more specific and technical, meaning certain groups within your organisation can use them to recover particular aspects of your business.

A common disaster plan that a lot of organisations will have is related to the Information department. This is because so much information can be stored via information technology that could be detrimental to your organisation if it is lost. The disaster recovery plan will answer the question of “if we lost our IT services, would we be able to recover them, and how do we do this?”

The disaster recovery plan will clearly outline the steps that need to be taken in order to retrieve this information again. You cannot stop here though, your organisation also needs to outline certain plans for specific departments. Some areas of your business will be a lot more heavily impacted by the loss of information system data than others, and this is what needs to be outlined.

Learn More:

• What is business continuity?
• How do you write a business continuity plan? 
• ISO 27001 Information Security Management Standard - Clause A.17 Information Security Aspects of Business Continuity Management