Business Continuity vs. IT Disaster Recovery: Key Differences and How They Work Together

You probably won’t be surprised to discover that they have many similar goals when it comes to recovering from an unplanned incident and restoring essential functions. However, it’s the nuances of their differences that are crucial to understand. 

Disruptions like cyberattacks, natural disasters, or even human errors can bring business operations to a halt. While the terms "business continuity" and "disaster recovery" are often used together, they each play unique roles in protecting organizations from such risks. Understanding the differences between these two approaches and why both are essential can help ensure your organization is prepared for whatever comes its way.

What is Business Continuity?

Business continuity (BC) involves a strategy to keep your business running when a disruption occurs. A business continuity plan (BCP) outlines the steps to achieve this goal by identifying essential functions and the resources needed to re-establish them quickly and seamlessly. This ensures that, even during a crisis, your business can stay operational. A BCP covers all aspects of an organization's continuity, often including an IT/DR strategy.

For example, if a hurricane strikes, a BCP might include strategies for remote work, finding alternative suppliers, or temporarily relocating operations. The mission is to minimize downtime and maintain as many services as possible, even under challenging circumstances.

What is IT Disaster Recovery?

While business continuity focuses on overall operations, IT disaster recovery (IT/DR) zeroes in on restoring your technology systems. It involves recovering your IT infrastructure, like networks, servers, and data, after an unexpected event. IT/DR plans outline how to get your systems back online quickly, whether it’s recovering from a cyberattack, hardware failure, or software crash.

For example, a major server crash takes down your organization’s primary database during peak business hours. Your IT/DR plan kicks in, prioritizing critical systems. Within minutes, a backup server is activated, and the most vital data is restored, minimizing downtime and customer impact.

In short, IT/DR is a specialized part of business continuity that focuses exclusively on protecting and restoring your IT environment, which is often the backbone of modern operations. Despite its importance, only 54% of organizations have a company-wide disaster recovery plan.

Similarities Between Business Continuity & IT Disaster Recovery

There are several key similarities between business continuity and IT disaster recovery:

• Goal Alignment: Both aim to get mission-critical operations back up and running as fast as possible.
• Planning and Testing: Planning and testing are crucial to ensure the plans work as intended and that personnel understand how they operate. Both are living documents that need regular reviews and updates to reflect changes in an organization’s essential functions. Alarmingly, 41% of companies have never tested their disaster recovery systems.
• Comprehensive Risk Coverage: Both plans consider a range of potential disasters—from natural events and fires to cyberattacks and network disruptions. Security breaches are a leading cause of downtime, cited by 78% of corporations.
• Challenges: The biggest challenges include a lack of support and funding for these plans, high levels of change within an organization, time constraints, and dedicating resources to keep the plans current and tested.

Key Differences Between Business Continuity & IT Disaster Recovery

Despite their similarities, these plans differ in scope and focus:

• Scope: Business continuity plans cover all essential functions across the organization, from supply chains to customer service. In contrast, IT/DR focuses specifically on technology systems.
• Focus: BC is about keeping the entire business operational, while IT/DR is concerned only with restoring IT systems after a disruption.
• Integration: Business continuity often involves multiple departments and processes, while IT/DR usually involves primarily the IT team.

Why Organizations Need Both

Many businesses make the mistake of focusing too much on either business continuity or IT disaster recovery, but both are essential. Here’s why:

1. Modern Dependencies: Most business functions rely heavily on IT. For example, retail businesses need functioning inventory systems, while banks rely on secure payment processing. An IT disruption can quickly bring business operations to a standstill. Less than 10% of businesses would survive a major cybersecurity incident without a solid disaster recovery strategy in place.
2. Holistic Protection: A BC plan might cover staffing, supply chain logistics, and customer communication, but without IT/DR, it lacks the capability to restore your technology. On the other hand, focusing solely on IT/DR may leave critical business processes unsupported.
3. Aligned Recovery Efforts: Coordinating between business continuity and IT/DR ensures that your recovery priorities are in sync. For example, if your BCP prioritizes customer support, your IT/DR plan should include restoring the systems that customer service relies on. 91% of mid-sized and large enterprises lose upwards of $300,000 for an hour of downtime. Of that 91%, nearly half (44%) have hourly outage costs ranging from $1 million to more than $5 million.

Getting Started with Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery

Creating an effective business continuity plan starts with a Business Impact Analysis (BIA). This analysis helps identify which functions are essential, the risks they face, and what the financial impact would be if they were disrupted. A BIA lays the foundation for both BC and IT/DR planning.

When creating a disaster recovery plan, organizations should start by clearly communicating its importance to employees. Gaining employee buy-in is crucial for collecting accurate documentation and ensuring thorough attention to detail. Once everyone is on board, you can start compiling an inventory of your IT assets, determining what data needs backing up, and planning how to recover those systems.

Remember, both BC and IT/DR plans need regular testing and updating. Your organization will change over time, and so should your plans. Exercises and reviews should be scheduled regularly to ensure they stay effective and relevant.

Preparis integrates IT Disaster Recovery (IT/DR) directly into its platform, making it a true all-in-one solution for business continuity. With Preparis, you can manage both business continuity and IT/DR plans in one place, simplifying how you prepare for and respond to disruptions. The platform allows for seamless coordination across teams, easy testing of recovery processes, and centralized documentation. This integrated approach ensures that your business is fully prepared to handle both operational disruptions and IT emergencies, all from one user-friendly software solution.

Don’t Leave Your Organization Vulnerable

Disruptions are inevitable. But with both a comprehensive business continuity plan and a well-structured IT disaster recovery plan, your organization will be ready to bounce back from whatever challenges it faces. By integrating these two strategies, you’re not just protecting your IT systems—you’re ensuring the continued success of your entire business.