Resources

Guide to Managing Business Continuity (with examples and tools)

How to design an effective business continuity plan for your organization.

Interruptions in workflows can occur at any time, whether due to cyberattacks, system failures, or even dreaded natural disasters.
‍

When cyberattacks or system failures happen, organizations face the challenge of continuing to operate without pausing their activity. Many of these situations can be avoided with proper maintenance, up-to-date updates, and constant monitoring.
‍

The difference between a resilient organization and a vulnerable one is not only in avoiding problems, but in knowing how to react quickly when they occur. Having a business continuity plan is key and CIOs are fundamental in this process. They are responsible for the creation and updating of these plans within their organizations.
‍

What is business continuity? And, more importantly, how is it guaranteed and why is it so necessary?
‍

Having a well-designed business continuity plan is essential for an organization to stay on course when facing disruptive events. A business continuity plan allows organizations to recover quickly, minimizing the impact on employees, customers, and all the key areas and processes that make their operations possible.
‍

Although many organizations adopt continuity plans to comply with regulations such as ISO 22301—which sets the requirements for implementing and maintaining a business continuity management system—what truly makes a difference is the ability to effectively execute a plan when it's needed most. Regulations such as DORA, which applies to the financial sector in the European Union, and the NIS2 directive, aimed at essential sectors, require clear and regularly tested continuity and recovery plans.
‍

In this article, we explore the fundamental elements of a business continuity plan, how to design it effectively, and the importance of new technologies to ensure your organization remains operational even in the most uncertain moments.
‍

FlexxClient provides your team with technological experiences that enable secure business continuity, ensuring measurable results for your company. Request a demo today.

‍

Table of Contents:
‍

1. What is a business continuity plan?
2. What are the key elements of a business continuity plan?
3. The phases of a business continuity plan
4. Examples of a business continuity plan
5. Technology as an ally
6. The impact of automation

‍

What is a business continuity plan‍

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a strategy that an organization must adopt to respond efficiently to different emergency situations and disruptions. This business continuity plan serves as a guide at all levels, allowing the organization to recover quickly and ensuring minimal impact on employees, customers, and processes.

‍
Although many organizations adopt these plans to comply with regulations such as ISO 22301, DORA, or NIS2—which sets out best practices for managing business continuity—the most important factor is their effectiveness in real situations, enabling swift action and ensuring best practices are applied in our project.

Regulations like DORA, in the financial sector, and NIS2, for essential sectors, require clear, operational, and regularly tested continuity plans. This means having such plans is not just a recommendation, but a legal necessity in many cases.

‍
The business continuity ISO and regulations are international standards that specify the requirements for a business continuity management system. It ensures that organizations identify their risks and critical resources, develop appropriate procedures, and validate their effectiveness through regular drills, to be prepared for any scenario.
‍

Digital transformation and globalization have increased exposure to risk, making business continuity a strategic necessity. As stated in an interview by Víctor López-Barrantes, Managing Director of NTT DATA Iberia:

‍

‍

Solid planning policy allows companies to anticipate some creative or technical disruptions in real time through constant monitoring and proactive alerts.
‍

This procedure is vital: it helps avoid critical failures in their systems and ensures that the continuity of an organization’s products and services aremaintained, even when other logistical or technological problems arise.
‍

Flexxible enables organizations to centrally manage both their physical and virtual devices as well as user sessions, making it easier to identify problems before they affect operations. Unlike other competitors who focus only on virtual endpoints, Flexxible provides unified visibility, management, and user experience for both devices and sessions—regardless of where or how employees access corporate resources.
‍

Organizations that suffer a major disruption without a documented business continuity plan often take weeks or months to regain productivity, which negatively affects their reputation.
‍

In fact, a study by NTT DATA estimated that business security-related cyberattacks would double in 2024 compared to 2023, reaching an estimated cost of €10 billion for organizations. This increase highlights the growing impact of digital threats on large companies and the urgent need for strong, updated business continuity plans.
‍

Platforms like Flexxible help companies manage their devices and applications in a centralized and automated way. They represent a sound policy that allows real-time monitoring of their technological infrastructure and execution of necessary operations.
‍

Flexxible provides real-time information about the tech ecosystem, allowing problems to be identified and solved before they become threats to productivity and development.

‍

What are the key elements in a business continuity plan?‍

A business continuity plan must consider real-world scenarios and technological solutions that allow operations to continue even in critical situations.
‍

For example, if a company experiences a system outage due to a cyberattack or natural disaster, having a prepared digital infrastructure makes all the difference.
‍

In this regard, Flexxible, with its focus on digital employee experience (DEX), facilitates the creation of a resilient work environment. With key features like IT task automation, centralized device and session management, and proactive monitoring, it ensures that companies can maintain productivity and minimize downtime in the face of any kind of crisis.
‍

READY FOR THE UNEXPECTED

A solid continuity plan takes into account critical scenarios like cyberattacks or natural disasters. The key is having technology capable of keeping operations running—even in the most uncertain moments.

Source: Flexxible

‍

1. Visibility and inventory management
Having a complete and up-to-date view of the state of the technological infrastructure is key to acting quickly in the face of any incident. Flexxible offers real-time monitoring of the status, performance, and connectivity of all employee endpoints, along with proactive alerts and trend analysis.
All this information is centralized on a single platform, allowing companies to anticipate potential problems and optimize operational stability. In this way, solutions can be implemented immediately.

‍

2. Automation of critical processes
Automating key tasks such as updates, patches, and repairs keeps operations running smoothly and transforms how organizations respond to incidents.
Thanks to solutions like those from Flexxible, systems remain updated, protected, and ready to act even in the face of unexpected events.
This intelligent automation enables proactive problem detection and resolution, reducing reliance on manual support and ensuring that business activity is not disrupted.

‍

3. Mass emergency notifications
In a critical situation, fast communication is essential. Having a mass notification system allows real-time alerts to be sent to all employees, wherever they are, with clear and direct messages while in their sessions.
FlexxClient includes an advanced functionality for sending immediate alerts through multiple channels, ensuring that the entire organization receives the necessary information to act without delay.
This instant communication capability is essential for coordinating effective responses during a crisis and protecting both people and key processes.

‍

4. Hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure
With the increasing adoption of cloud technology, organizations must be able to manage resources across both local and cloud infrastructures.
Flexxible enables CIOs to efficiently manage hybrid and multi-cloud environments, ensuring operations continue without disruption, even in unexpected situations.

‍

The phases of a business continuity plan
On the other hand, a solid business continuity plan is divided into four essential phases for its effectiveness:

‍

Business Impact Analysis (BIA): Identify critical processes and understand the impact of their disruption.
Risk assessment: Analyze potential threats, from cyberattacks to natural disasters, and protect company data.
Continuity strategy: Design recovery and maintenance solutions for key assets.
Testing and maintenance: Validate the business continuity plan through regular drills and post-incident analysis, adapting the plan as necessary and taking appropriate measures to address new threats and emerging technologies.

‍

Example of a business continuity plan‍

Let’s imagine your organization is affected by a cyberattack that disables one of the key systems for your daily operations. In this scenario, a well-structured business continuity plan can make the difference between a quick recovery and a prolonged crisis. These would be the steps to follow:

‍

Problem identification and plan activation.
In our example, a cyberattack has compromised access to the systems. Thanks to Flexxible’s comprehensive monitoring system—which tracks device performance, applications, and vulnerabilities in real time—the IT team receives instant alerts about anomalies that could indicate a security incident, such as resource usage spikes or unauthorized software. This enables the business continuity plan to be activated without delay.

‍

Communication and resource prioritization.
Once the problem is detected, it’s crucial to communicate it to all employees and key stakeholders.
With tools like FlexxClient, mass real-time notifications can be sent to all members of the organization in session, ensuring everyone is informed about the situation and the steps they must follow.

‍

Implementation of recovery measures.
At this stage, the IT team focuses on recovering the affected systems. Flexxible provides the necessary tools to act quickly and in a coordinated manner, thanks to its centralized management of devices and applications, automation of critical tasks, and real-time control over the state of the technology environment. This allows for immediate deployment of updates or security patches, minimizes the impact of the incident, and ensures that users can resume their activities with minimal disruption.

‍

Operational continuity and post-incident analysis.
As systems come back online, it's essential to ensure that employees can resume their tasks without any loss of productivity. Flexxible enables centralized management of both physical devices and virtual environments, accelerating recovery and ensuring a seamless work experience. In addition, Flexxible allows for a detailed review of what occurred during the incident—how long it lasted, which devices were most affected, and how systems responded. This post-incident analysis helps improve the continuity plan and better prepare for future situations.

‍

Technology as an ally for business continuity

‍

Technology is an effective tool that takes on great importance in the context of business continuity. Technology is a strategic ally that can make the difference in crisis management and in ensuring that an organizations’s operations continue to run efficiently, even during times of disruption.
CIOs, being responsible for the technological infrastructure, play a crucial role in the implementation of these solutions.

‍

Technology plays a fundamental role in business continuity. With the rise of hybrid cloud environments, organizations can manage their technological resources more quickly and flexibly, adapting rapidly to change.

‍

Automation is key to maintaining productivity during disruptive situations. Flexxible enables corrective tasks to be deployed to affected devices in a centralized way, reducing the impact of downtime and ensuring that employees continue to operate efficiently.

‍

Real-time monitoring and proactive alerts help keep the IT infrastructure healthy, allowing for automatic error correction and visibility into areas for improvement.

‍

Don’t let interruptions impact your productivity. Take action now and discover how FlexxClient can enhance business continuity with advanced technological solutions.
Request a demo or make a general inquiry [here].