This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business Continuity Management Glossary
Explore key terms and definitions to help you build, implement, and sustain an effective business continuity strategy.
Business Continuity Management Key Terms
Discover essential terms like Business Impact Analysis (BIA), Recovery Time Objective (RTO), and Continuity Planning, helping you build a resilient organization.
Glossary
All-Hazards Approach
An all-hazards approach is a strategy for business continuity planning that prepares organizations for a wide range of risks and disruptions rather than focusing on specific threats.
Alternative Worksite
An alternative worksite is a designated location where employees can perform critical business functions if their primary workplace becomes unavailable.
Business Continuity — BC
Business continuity is the advance planning and preparation undertaken to ensure that an organization will have the capability to operate its critical business functions during disruptive events.
Business Continuity Institute — BCI
The Business Continuity Institute is the world’s leading institute for business continuity and resilience professionals, including industry certifications.
Business Continuity Manager (or Management) — BCM
A Business Continuity Manager is the point of contact at an organization whose primary responsibility is to prepare that organization to handle potential disruptions and to help minimize the impact of disruptions when they do occur.
- Business continuity management is a process that helps organizations prepare for and respond to disruptions.
Business Continuity Plan — BCP
A business continuity plan is a document that outlines how a business will continue operating during an unplanned disruption in service.
Business Continuity Program — BC Program
A business continuity program is an enterprise-wide initiative that encompasses planning, testing, training, and the continuous improvement of business continuity strategies.
Business Continuity Resource Requirements Analysis — BCRRA
A business continuity resource requirements analysis is a process within business continuity planning where an organization identifies and assesses the critical resources needed to maintain essential operations during a disruptive event.
Business Impact Analysis (or Assessment) — BIA
A BIA is the process of determining the criticality of business activities and associated resource requirements to ensure operational resilience and continuity of operations during and after a business disruption.
Business Interruption
A business interruption refers to a disruption in business operations caused by external or internal incidents, leading to financial and operational losses.
Business Process Improvement — BPI
A business process improvement refers to the analysis, review, and improvement of existing business processes. This is done by mapping out business processes, identifying inefficiencies, redesigning the processes, and benchmarking to initial metrics.
Business Resiliency Professionals Association — BRPA
BRPA is an independent professional organization focused on education and information exchange related to disaster recovery planning, business continuity planning, crisis management, and overall organizational resiliency, primarily serving professionals in the Chicago area.
Continuity, Insurance and Risk — CIR
CIR is a media company based in the United Kingdom that provides news, analysis, and awards for the insurance, risk management, and business continuity industries.
Critical Business Function
A critical business function is an essential process or operation that must be maintained to ensure business continuity.
Critical Processing Period — CPP
A critical processing period is a time of the day, week, month, or year that a process disruption would/could be more impactful to an organization.
Disaster Recovery International Institute — DRII
The Disaster Recovery International Institute is a non-profit that helps organizations prepare for and recover from disruptions through education, accreditation, industry certifications, and thought leadership in business continuity and related fields.
Disaster Recovery Journal — DRJ
The Disaster Recovery Journal is the industry’s largest resource for business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis communication, and risk management.
ISO 22301
ISO 22301 is the international standard for business continuity management systems (BCMS).
Maximum Allowable Downtime — MAD
The maximum allowable downtime is the maximum time a business can tolerate the absence or unavailability of a particular business function or process (sometimes referred to as maximum tolerable downtime — MTD or maximum tolerable period of disruption — MTPD).
Mitigation Plan
A mitigation plan is a strategy that reduces the likelihood or impact of potential disruptions.
Operational Resilience — Op Res
Operational resilience is the ability of an organization to deliver critical operations during and through a disruption.
Pandemic Preparedness Plan
A pandemic preparedness plan is a documented approach for maintaining business continuity during widespread disease outbreaks.
Primary Site
A primary site refers to an organization’s main location for business operations and data storage.
Recovery Time Objective — RTO
A recovery time objective is the duration of time and a service level within which a business process, application, and/or vendor service must be available after a disaster in order to avoid unacceptable consequences associated with a break in continuity.
Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is the process of identifying and evaluating potential threats to business continuity.
Runbook
A runbook is similar to a disaster recovery plan and might indicate strictly technical recovery script procedures.
Scenario Testing
Scenario testing is the assessment of a firm’s ability to remain within its impact tolerance for each of its important business services in the event of a severe but plausible disruption of its services.
- Allows organizations to know the “now” status of important services, model “what if” scenarios, rehearse, and measure response.
- Inputs form: An inputs form gives teams the ability to input what assets (sites, teams, applications, vendors) are disrupted by an event and for how long.
- Scenario Engine: A scenario engine is an analysis engine that takes the inputs and the mapped interdependencies and computes the impact and findings.
Tabletop Exercise
A tabletop exercise is an informal, discussion-based session in which a team discusses their roles and responses during an emergency, walking through one or more example scenarios.
Use continuity management software to bring your program up to speed
It’s never been easier to make your business continuity program what it needs to be: accurate, informative, strategic, and dynamic. Fusion can get you there.