A continuity plan that has never been tested is not a plan. It is a document.
Business continuity planning is the work of understanding what your organisation needs to keep operating when something goes wrong and making sure the people, processes, and technology required to do that are in place, documented, and tested before an incident occurs.
Disruption is not always dramatic. It might be a ransomware attack, a critical system failure, a flood, a power outage, a key staff member unavailable, or a supply chain breakdown. The organisations that manage these events well are not the ones that were lucky. They are the ones who made deliberate decisions in advance about what mattered most and what they would do if it was unavailable.
Microsolve combines continuity planning expertise with the managed IT infrastructure and tested recovery capability to support it — so your plan has both the strategic clarity and the technical foundation it needs to work.
A business continuity plan (BCP) is a structured document that defines how your organisation will maintain essential operations during and after a disruption. It is distinct from a disaster recovery plan, though the two are closely related.
BCP answers the question: how does the business keep operating - even in a reduced capacity - when normal conditions are disrupted?
It covers people, communication, critical processes, alternate locations or working arrangements, customer and supplier relationships, and the decision-making chain during an incident.
Disaster Recovery (DR) answers the question: how do we restore the IT systems, data, and technology infrastructure the business depends on?
It covers recovery priorities, RPO and RTO targets, backup and restoration procedures, and technical recovery sequencing.
Both are necessary. A BCP without a DR component has a plan for the business but not for the technology it runs on. A DR plan without a BCP has a technical recovery plan but no framework for how the business operates while that recovery happens. Microsolve addresses both — with continuity planning expertise and the managed IT infrastructure to deliver on the technical recovery side.
Most organisations that have experienced a significant incident describe the same pattern: they had a plan. The plan was based on assumptions. The assumptions were wrong. The plan had not been tested.
The most common failure points in continuity planning are:
A plan that assumes a server can be restored in two hours - because the vendor said so, or because it worked once - may be wildly optimistic under real conditions. Recovery testing under realistic conditions reveals actual timeframes, not theoretical ones.
Plans are typically written around the systems people think of first. The critical dependency that gets overlooked - the third-party application that everything else connects to, the single person who knows the admin credentials, the backup that stopped running three months ago - is the one that causes the most damage.
Systems change. People change. Vendors change. A continuity plan written two years ago and never reviewed is a plan for an organisation that no longer exists.
When an incident occurs, who decides what? Who communicates with staff? Who communicates with clients? Who has authority to activate recovery procedures? If those questions are not answered in advance, the first hour of any incident is consumed by confusion rather than action.
Microsolve works with clients to design, document, test, and maintain continuity plans that reflect how the organisation actually works — not how it worked when the plan was first written.
Effective business continuity planning follows a structured process. Microsolve guides clients through each stage, combining strategic facilitation with technical assessment and implementation.
Identify the critical functions, systems, and dependencies that the business cannot operate without, then determine the maximum tolerable downtime for each.
This defines priorities and provides the basis for recovery target-setting.
Identify the realistic disruption scenarios the business faces: cyber attack, natural disaster, power failure, key-person dependency, supply chain disruption.
Assess the likelihood and potential impact of each, and identify existing controls and their effectiveness.
Define how the business will respond to each priority scenario.
Establish RTO and RPO targets.
Design the technical recovery approach.
Document the operational workarounds and communication structure for each scenario.
Produce clear, usable documentation that staff can follow under pressure.
Not a dense policy document, but a practical, actionable guide to what happens, who does what, and in what order.
Test the plan. Tabletop exercises, technical recovery tests, and (where appropriate) live failover testing.
Identify gaps and address them before an incident reveals them.
Review the plan at least annually, and following any significant change to the business, its systems, or the threat environment.
A continuity plan is a living document, not a once-every-five-years exercise.
A business continuity plan identifies what the business needs to keep running. But the ability to actually deliver on that plan depends on the IT infrastructure and data protection practices that underpin it.
Microsolve manages the technical layer that continuity plans depend on:
Veeam-powered backup with AWS multi-region cloud storage, regular testing, and rapid recovery capability aligned to RTO targets
Independent backup of Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams, separate from Microsoft's platform
Backup data that cannot be encrypted or deleted by an attack on primary systems
Scheduled technical recovery tests that validate RTO targets are achievable in practice
Continuous oversight of critical systems with rapid escalation when something requires attention
Step-by-step technical recovery documentation that supports the broader BCP
Disaster recovery (DR) is the technical component of business continuity, meaning the set of procedures and infrastructure that allow IT systems to be restored after a significant incident.
Microsolve designs and manages DR capability as a defined, tested service and not a theoretical plan. This includes:
Identifying which systems must be restored first based on business impact
Recovery targets set against real business requirements, not defaults
Step-by-step documentation for each recovery scenario
For virtual infrastructure and cloud-hosted workloads
Live or simulation-based testing that validates recovery procedures work as documented
Structured review after any significant incident or DR test to identify improvements
DR capability is not purchased once and left alone. It requires ongoing management, testing, and refinement as the business evolves
A business continuity plan (BCP) is a structured document that defines how an organisation will maintain or restore essential operations during and after a disruption. It covers people, processes, communication, and the decision-making structure for managing an incident.
A BCP addresses how the business keeps operating during disruption - covering people, processes, communication, and operational workarounds. A disaster recovery plan addresses how IT systems and data are restored after an incident. The two are closely related and should be designed together.
At minimum, annually. Additionally, following any significant change to the business such as new systems, key staff changes, significant growth, a change in operating environment, or following any actual incident or DR test.
A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) identifies the critical functions, systems, and dependencies of the organisation and determines the maximum tolerable downtime for each. It is the starting point for setting realistic recovery priorities and targets.
Through a combination of tabletop exercises (facilitated walkthroughs of specific scenarios), technical recovery tests (actual restoration of systems from backup), and - where appropriate - live failover exercises that simulate real incidents in a controlled environment.
Backup is one component of business continuity. A BCP also covers how people and processes operate during the recovery period, communication with staff and clients, decision-making authority, and operational workarounds while systems are being restored. Both are necessary.
It depends on the complexity of the organisation. A focused engagement for a mid-sized business can produce a usable, tested BCP in four to eight weeks. Microsolve scopes this based on your specific environment and the depth of planning required.
A business continuity review with Microsolve gives you a clear assessment of your current resilience posture, the gaps in your existing plans, and a structured path to a tested, practical BCP.
