Business Continuity Planning: 5 Steps Every UK Business Should Take
When systems fail or the lights go out, you do not want to be guessing your next move. A strong business continuity plan keeps people safe, protects revenue, and gets you back to normal quickly. In this guide, we break down what a robust plan looks like for UK organisations, from the core building blocks to the phases of execution. You will also see how we approach resilience, testing, and backup protection so you can move forward with confidence
What a business continuity plan should include
A practical business continuity plan (BCP) is not a binder that gathers dust. It is a live playbook that gives clear instructions when time is tight. At a minimum, include:
- Purpose and scope, what the plan covers: sites, systems, teams
- Roles and responsibilities, named owners; deputies for key positions; contact trees
- Risk assessment, top threats like power loss, ransomware, supplier failure, severe weather, and site inaccessibility
- Business Impact Analysis (BIA), critical processes, dependencies, Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs)
- Incident response procedures, step-by-step actions for different scenarios; escalation paths; decision thresholds
- Communication plan, internal and external messages; templates; stakeholder lists; regulatory notifications
- IT disaster recovery runbooks, how to restore services, data, and connectivity; system by system
- Facilities and people arrangements, alternate sites, remote access, equipment, and safety guidance
- Vendor and third-party coordination, SLAs, emergency contacts, and failover options
- Backup and data protection standards, schedules, verification, offsite copies, immutability
- Testing and training plan, exercises, simulations, lessons learned, and update cycles
- Change control and governance, how the plan is reviewed, approved, and versioned
We tailor these elements to your sector, risk profile, and compliance needs, keeping the document concise and actionable.
The 4 Ps of business continuity
The 4 Ps help you think clearly about coverage and priorities:
- People, staff safety, wellbeing, access, and clear roles; training and support
- Premises, buildings, sites, equipment, utilities, and physical security
- Processes, core operations, manual workarounds, and documented procedures
- Providers, technology, suppliers, logistics, and key partners
A balanced plan protects each area, so a single failure does not stop everything else.
The 5 steps of a business continuity plan
There are many frameworks, but these five steps work well for UK SMEs and mid-market organisations.
- Understand your risks and impacts
Run a risk assessment and BIA. Map critical services, upstream dependencies, and downstream obligations to customers. Set RTOs and RPOs you can actually meet. - Design your strategies
Decide how you will keep services running or recover fast. This could include alternate premises, remote work activation, high availability for critical apps, resilient connectivity, and layered backups. We often pair this with stronger network security and identity controls to limit the blast radius of cyber incidents. - Build your plan and playbooks
Write clear, short procedures for likely scenarios, cyber attack, power failure, telecoms outage, site loss, or third-party disruption. Include named owners, checklists, and decision points. Keep copies accessible offline. - Test through exercises and simulations
Tabletop walk-throughs, live failovers, and restore tests expose gaps before a real incident. We recommend drills in line with your risk profile, plus a mid-year review to capture changes in systems, staffing, or suppliers. - Maintain and improve
Schedule updates, track lessons learned, and verify backup integrity regularly. Treat continuity as a continuous programme, not a one-off project.
The 3 phases of execution
When an incident hits, execution falls into three practical phases:
- Response, detect and contain the issue; protect people; stabilise systems; communicate early
- Recovery, restore priority services to agreed RTOs; verify data integrity; manage workarounds; keep stakeholders informed
- Restoration and improvement, return to normal operations; complete root cause analysis; capture lessons; update the plan and controls
Clear ownership and rehearsed handovers between phases keep momentum and reduce confusion.
Disaster recovery planning, practical tips
- Align RTOs and RPOs with real budgets and technology. If an application needs a 2-hour RTO, design for it.
- Use the 3 2 1 backup rule, three copies, two different media, one offsite; add immutability to protect against ransomware.
- Test restores regularly, not just backups. Measure how long restores take and whether the data is usable.
- Document manual workarounds for top processes. A simple checklist can keep orders moving while systems come back.
- Build resilient connectivity, consider backup internet circuits or 4G 5G failover for sites that cannot be offline.
- Secure remote access, use multifactor authentication, conditional access, and least privilege.
- Keep vendor contacts and SLAs handy. In a crisis, minutes matter.
- Train your incident managers and practice comms. Short, calm updates reduce rumours and pressure.
- Review at least annually, ideally mid-year too, to reflect new apps, mergers, staffing changes, or supplier shifts.
How Logical Micro helps you build resilience
We bring over 40 years of hands on IT experience to continuity and recovery planning. Our approach is practical and test driven.
- Business Continuity Consultancy, we facilitate risk and impact workshops, define RTOs, RPOs and produce concise playbooks that your teams can follow under pressure
- Disaster simulation and drills, from tabletop exercises to live recovery tests, including backup restore validation and connectivity failover
- Backup and recovery, cloud backups with immutability, air gapped copies, and rapid restore procedures tailored to your systems
- Secure remote access, remote working solutions using virtual desktop infrastructure, identity hardening, and VPNs configured for scale
- Ongoing monitoring and mid-year reviews, we assess changes, retest priority scenarios, and keep the plan fit for purpose
You can engage us for a full programme or targeted support, without a long-term contract.
Useful technologies to support continuity
The right tools make continuity simpler and more reliable. Depending on your needs, we can shape:
- Cloud platforms for resilient hosting and quick scaling, with clear runbooks for failover and restore
- Identity and endpoint protection to reduce incident likelihood and speed containment
- Collaboration and telephony that keeps teams connected if your main site is down
- Secure file services for distributed teams and compliant recovery access
If you are exploring trusted partners, our team can advise on options and implementation paths that match your budget and goals.
When to involve an experienced IT partner
Bring a partner in when you want independent risk validation, when your RTOs are tight, or when you need to test without disrupting customer service. We can design and run realistic simulations, tune backup policies, and harden your network so that recovery is faster and safer. Many clients ask us to run a focused mid-year review that checks assumptions, tests restores, and updates contact trees and supplier details.
If you want to learn more or start with a rapid assessment, talk to us. Call 01274 522131 or email
sales@logicalmicro.com.
Summary
A strong BCP protects your people, premises, processes, and providers, and it gives you a clear route through response, recovery, and full restoration. Start with risk and impact, design realistic strategies, build crisp playbooks, test often, and keep improving. Logical Micro can help you make this real with practical consultancy, disaster simulation, and hardened backup protection so you can operate with confidence in the face of disruption.
Optional next steps: if you would like to dive deeper into specific areas, explore our business continuity consultancy or our disaster recovery plan guidance, or speak to us about tailored it support services for your organisation.