About business continuity management

Business continuity management (BCM) is about planning for a quick and painless return to 'business as usual' in the event of a major incident, regardless of the cause. The cause might be: 

  • Internal or external to the business
  • accidental or deliberate
  • the result of human, mechanical or technological error
  • have a natural cause 

BCM plans

If you own or manage a business, you should have a BCM plan for unexpected emergencies. 

The plan should be: 

  • robust
  • comprehensive
  • validated 

This will: 

  • increase the chance of your business surviving a major incident
  • help you minimise disruption if there is an incident
  • help you reduce the impact of any disruption 

Creating your business continuity management plan

Creating a BCM plan is best thought of as a cycle of activities. Each stage in the cycle leads to the next. 

In this guide, we describe what’s involved in each stage.

We also provide supporting documents for you to download and use.

View our business continuity plan documents: