Business continuity and disaster recovery are often used as if they mean the same thing. They overlap, but they answer different questions. Disaster recovery focuses on restoring technology and data. Business continuity is broader: how does the organisation keep operating while systems, premises or suppliers are disrupted?
Disaster recovery restores systems
A disaster recovery plan covers backups, servers, cloud services, replacement equipment, recovery order and the technical steps needed to bring critical services back.
Business continuity keeps work moving
Continuity planning looks at how staff communicate, how customers are supported, which manual processes can be used temporarily and what happens if an office or supplier is unavailable.
Recovery priorities should come from the business
IT teams can restore systems more effectively when the business has identified what matters most. A finance system needed for payroll may have a different recovery priority from an archive that can remain offline for several days.
Test assumptions before an incident
A plan that has never been tested often contains hidden dependencies. Short tabletop exercises and practical restore tests help expose missing contact details, unclear responsibilities and unrealistic recovery times.
A simple next step
Kazzoo can help Leicester SMEs review backups and disaster recovery in the wider context of keeping the business operational.
Useful Kazzoo services: IT disaster recovery · IT support
Talk to Kazzoo
If you would like practical advice based on your current setup, contact Kazzoo. We support businesses across Leicester and Leicestershire with day-to-day IT support, infrastructure, security and technology planning.