Business continuity specialists make sure businesses can keep on running, even in challenging times. For example, how would the business adapt if its product supply chain failed? Or how would it carry on after a natural disaster?  Or how would it adapt when faced with a global pandemic?

By answering these, and many more questions, you’ll play a crucial role in protecting your organisation’s property, employees and profit. It’s a big responsibility, as you can end up in court if you haven’t put the right measures in place.  

Day-to-day, you’ll audit business areas to identify potential risks, and then you’ll develop ways to minimise or solve any issues you find. You’ll need to keep up to date with any new threats, like those related to emerging technology, so you can include these in your planning. 

To excel as a business continuity specialist, you’ll have great people skills. This lets you work closely with your colleagues to help everyone understand events that could threaten the business – and how to prevent them.  

What you’ll do

• Audit strategies for business continuity, including how to manage in a crisis and how to recover after a disaster 

• Find weak points and safety risks in how the business currently runs 

• Develop and publish processes for decision making and communications in the event of an emergency 

• Train management and other staff on business continuity processes 

• Generate hypothetical scenarios to stress-test your plans in the face of various different types of disruption 

• Keep up to date with what’s required by law and monitor industry trends to identify potential threats 

• Manage budgets for business continuity resources

• The Business Continuity Institute (BCI)

• The Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP)