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Build Resilient Operations with Expert Business Continuity Consulting

From the company that developed ISO 22301, BSI consultants anticipate risks across people and processes so your business thrives amid any disruption.

Business Continuity

Strengthen resilience across EHS, supply chain, and sustainability with expert business continuity consulting that keeps your operations moving.

Business continuity planning is the strategic process of identifying risks and building resilient frameworks, like ISO 22301, to ensure critical operations remain functional during a major disruption.

Disruptions can halt production, impact safety, and damage reputation. Our business continuity consulting empowers EHS, supply chain, and sustainability teams to identify vulnerabilities, develop robust recovery plans, and ensure compliance with global standards. From risk assessments to continuity testing, we help you safeguard critical operations and achieve resilience goals so you stay prepared, responsive, and sustainable in an unpredictable world.

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How to Develop a Business Continuity Plan in 8 Steps

Below are the 8 critical steps for developing a business continuity plan that ensures your business can withstand disruptions and recover quickly.

Initiation & Governance

Foundation for business continuity management: secure leadership, define scope, set governance, and align with policy and regulatory needs.
Internal Review & Analysis

Map critical functions, processes, and dependencies to focus continuity planning on business priorities.
Business Impact Analysis

Identify downtime limits, set RTO/RPO, and prioritize recovery to reduce financial, operational, and reputational risk.
Risk Assessment

Analyze threats, vulnerabilities, and impacts to guide risk reduction and continuity strategies.
Strategy Development

Select cost-effective recovery strategies: remote work, backups, alternate sites, and supplier options.
Plan Development

Create actionable business continuity plans, IT recovery, and crisis plans to maintain or restore operations during disruptions.
Training & Awareness

Prepare staff with business continuity roles and responsibilities; build awareness for safe, effective response.
Testing & Validation

Run exercises and failover tests to verify plans, identify gaps, and improve business continuity readiness.

Expose hidden risks before your next disruption hits

See where your organization is most vulnerable today, then act with data-driven insight, proven frameworks, and expert guidance to close the gaps fast.

Benchmark against ISO 22301 and get a clear, prioritized roadmap to certification.
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Reveal single points of failure across sites, systems, and suppliers before they fail.
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Translate extreme-weather, cyber, and supply chain risks into actionable scenarios.
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Stress-test your plans with realistic exercises that make resilience a habit, not hope.
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FAQs

Get answers to the most commonly asked questions about Business Continuity

Business Continuity Management (BCM) is the overarching strategic framework, often aligned with ISO 22301, that builds organizational resilience to ensure a business can withstand any crisis.

Within this framework are two critical components:

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is the tactical "playbook" that outlines specific procedures for personnel to maintain or resume critical business operations during a disruption.

A Disaster Recovery (DR) plan is aspecialized subset of the BCP focused exclusively on the rapid restoration of IT systems, data, and technology infrastructure after a an event.

The Bottom Line: BCM is the strategy, BCP is the operational response, and DR is the technical recovery.
Our approach is centered on you. We start by listening—understanding your vision, current state, risks, and priorities. Together, we identify and mitigate threats that could impact your goals, guiding your organization through a maturity journey from reactive to proactive resilience. This collaborative process accelerates progress toward strength and competitive advantage. Supporting this approach is BSI’s global expertise, proven frameworks, and extensive resources, ensuring your Business Continuity strategy meets ISO 22301 standards and best practices.
A fully integrated business resilience strategy delivers significant advantages: reduced risk exposure, faster recovery and continuity, improved organizational agility, stronger stakeholder trust, and optimized resource management. It aligns resilience with strategic growth and innovation, building competitive advantage, workforce stability, and a robust organizational culture. By adopting a comprehensive framework based on ISO 22301 principles, organizations can anticipate, withstand, and adapt to disruption through proactive prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery planning—resulting in lower costs, quicker response times, and long-term resilience.
Leadership for EHS exercises is typically driven by the emergency/continuity manager or a designated senior leader from the EHS team. They are responsible for developing the exercise in a confidential setting.

While the EHS team directs the process, successful exercises require representation from all critical areas, including: operations, facilities, human resources, leadership, and external responders. Participants may also take on roles as evaluators, controllers, and observers to ensure a comprehensive assessment of preparedness.
Organizations should start simple and gradually build complexity.

Tabletop Exercises (Discussion-Based): Best for new or untested plans. These involve a guided discussion in a conference room setting to ensure plan comprehension.

Functional Exercises: Once gaps from tabletop exercises are addressed, organizations move to functional exercises: hands-on, realistic simulations that activate specific functions (like a communications center) but do not involve full resource deployment.

Full-Scale Exercises (Operations-Based): Functional proficiency is a prerequisite. These are the most complex, involving the actual deployment of personnel and resources to simulate a complete, real-time emergency scenario.
EHS preparedness utilizes a broad spectrum of discussion-based and operations-based exercises, with the main distinction being scope and complexity:

A Drill is highly focused, designed to test a single task, specific equipment, or a single system (e.g., a fire alarm test or an evacuation route check).

A Full-Scale Exercise is the most comprehensive simulation, involving multiple teams, equipment, and often external responders. It is designed to mirror real-world complexity and requires the highest level of participation and engagement.
The primary goal of EHS (Environmental, Health, and Safety) emergency drills and exercises is to validate emergency plans, processes, and overall readiness. They are a critical component of a robust business continuity and risk management program. Specifically, conducting regular exercises helps organizations:

Validate current response plans and procedures;

Ensure practical application of safety measures;

Highlight resource gaps, shortfalls, and vulnerabilities;

Foster team coordination and communication; and

Trigger necessary corrective actions before an actual incident occurs.
EHS emergency plans should be reviewed and updated at a minimum annually, or immediately whenever significant operational changes occur (e.g., facility layout changes, new equipment, or process shifts).

Operational exercises (involving moving people or equipment) should occur annually. Smaller tabletop drills or procedure reviews should be scheduled more frequently based on industry standards, the organization's risk level, and known potential risks (e.g., a severe weather forecast or recent regulatory updates).

Case study

Global Pharma Emergency Preparedness & Response Transformation

“We leveraged BSI’s valuable expertise in emergency response planning to bolster our preparedness efforts.”

BSI experts transformed this pharma leader’s emergency readiness by developing response plans, leading mitigation projects, and launching a comprehensive training and evaluation program to ensure global operational resilience against disruptions.

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Recognized Expertise

Globally recognized leaders in risk management and business continuity

Our global consultants are passionate about empowering organizations to thrive amidst uncertainty with decades of proven success.

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Our Experts

Paul Raw, Senior Consultant, specializing in enterprise risk & resilience

Paul has 20 years of experience supporting business continuity programs including strategic prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery planning.

Our Experts

Tony Pelli, Global Practice Director, Security & Resilience

Tony has extensive experience in risk assessment, supplier risk management and strategy, to build customized supply chain risk management solutions.

Our Experts

David Blacksberg, Senior Consultant, specializing in Business Continuity

David has more than 25 year of experience in business continuity and emergency management program development.

Our Experts

Maria McAhron, Consultant, Security and Resilience

Maria has 20+ years as a multilingual business continuity and IT implementation specialist with expertise in risk management and ISO 22301.

Capabilities

Resilience against all types of disruption events

Bolster threat resilience, including natural disasters, supply chain disruptions, site security, and more, while ensuring worker safety.

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Training

Covering a spectrum of scenarios in a variety of formats

Instructors combine technical expertise, first-hand industry knowledge, and innovative delivery methods for a dynamic learning experience.

Diverse consulting training exercise

Incorporate our tailored options and exercise solutions across varying levels of complexity from discussion-based, through functional, to full-scale.

Training Development

Tailored: We send experts to understand your specific training needs, ensuring precise solutions.

Empower your workforce

Enable a culture of learning and development to address knowledge gaps and personal development for workforce retention.

Tailored by Sector

We partner with organizations from a vast range of sectors including:

Government - Public Agencies

The Government sector includes organizations belonging to the public that enforce laws, provide public services, and carry out government policies.

Healthcare – Biopharma

The Biopharma sector includes medical drug research, development, production and distribution for curative and preventive care.

Healthcare – Hospitals

The Healthcare sector comprises hospitals, inpatient services, specialty centers, physician offices, virtual care, and health plan programs.

Manufacturing

The Manufacturing sector transforms materials into new products and also includes repair, installation, and subcontracting for third parties

Retail

The Retail sector involves businesses selling goods/services to the public through various outlets, catering to diverse consumer needs.

Technologies

The Technology sector encompasses companies in tech product/services R&D, manufacturing, software, social media, and IT services.

Insights & Media

The latest business continuity planning insights

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Blog

Five Things to Do Before the Next Blizzard Hits

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Ten overlooked ways Climate Change Impacts EHS

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Back to basics: Business continuity & disruption prevention

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Ensuring Readiness and Continuity

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Practice Makes Permanent

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Let's talk business continuity

Tap into 100+ years of multi-industry experience. As your partner in progress, we'll work with you to anticipate risks and build solid strategies.

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