Today’s organizations face rising expectations regarding their availability and an increasing number of serious threats. These changes are driving the shift from traditional business continuity to operational resilience, which seeks to maintain functionality even during disruptions.
The Next Big Shift in Continuity Thinking
In the 25 years I’ve been in the field, business continuity has undergone several big changes. Usually, these have been in response to major historical events or significant technological developments.
The September 11 attacks made organizations more cognizant of the need to be prepared for catastrophic disruptions. The shift to the cloud changed how and where companies store, backup, and restore their data.
The COVID-19 pandemic undercut common assumptions about our health security and underscored the vulnerability of the global supply chain, drawing attention to those aspects of continuity planning. More recently, the rise of extreme weather, cybercrime, and global instability have renewed organizations’ awareness of the need to prepare for disruptions, with IT disaster recovery (IT/DR) in particular receiving a significant boost in funding.
We’ve also seen a growing realization that disruptions are now the norm rather than the exception, an increase in system interdependence, and a rising expectation that leading organizations will offer some degree of functionality 24/7, no matter what.
In response to these developments, the field is on the cusp of another major shift: the shift from traditional business continuity to the new approach of operational resilience.
An Industry in Transition
You know a change in an industry is significant when it requires it change much of its terminology, including its name. But that is what is happening in our field right now.
Expect over the next couple of years to see many fewer references to business continuity (BC) and many more to operational resilience (OR).
However, OR doesn’t replace BC, rather it builds upon it. It might be thought of “business continuity plus.”
How Operational Resilience Differs from Business Continuity
Let’s look more closely at how operational resilience differs from traditional BC.
BC is about restoring systems that have been disrupted by events. Its focus is on identifying the most critical and time-sensitive processes, technologies, and applications and crafting (and testing) recovery plans to enable them to be brought back online swiftly enough to avoid a serious impact.
In short, BC is about recovery.
Operational resilience, which originated in the financial sectors of the UK and Singapore and is now gaining traction worldwide, is about service continuity. This is a higher bar, and the measures need to achieve it are more demanding.
Operational resilience seeks to ensure that critical business services can continue through a disruption, even if supporting systems, vendors, or personnel are impacted. Instead of focusing on restoring individual pieces, it strives to preserve critical services, no matter what.
Operational resilience is about readiness.
The difference between the two is similar to that between learning how to fix a flat tire efficiently vs. having tires that never go flat.
Operational Resilience in Action
To help you grasp the distinction, here are a few examples contrasting the approaches BC and OR might take to common industry challenges.
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Resilience at an Online Banking Service
BC approach: After a core customer-facing application crashes, recovery teams follow the DR plan to restore the system from backup within the prescribed RTO. Services resume when the system is back online. OR approach: The application has been architected for resilience, with active-active failover across multiple cloud regions and replicated data sources. If one region fails, the system automatically shifts to another, and customers experience no downtime. Key technique: Built-in redundancy and real-time failover.
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Resilience at a Healthcare Provider
BC approach: A ransomware attack locks users out of key systems. The response team initiates recovery, working to restore the compromised environment from clean backups. OR approach: Staff are trained in predefined manual fallback procedures. Essential forms and workflows exist in offline formats. A parallel communication channel enables teams to coordinate. Services continue, even with core systems down. Key technique: Manual alternatives and trained personnel ready to pivot.
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Resilience at a Retailer
BC approach: When a key supplier fails to deliver due to geopolitical unrest, the organization activates a continuity plan to identify and engage alternative vendors. OR approach: The organization already maintains multiple qualified vendors for key components. It proactively monitors supply chain risks. When the supplier goes offline, others are already in place to fill the gap. Key technique: Diversification and pre-qualified alternatives.
These examples reflect the central idea of OR: it’s not about being reactive, it’s about being ready.
How Resilience Professionals Can Support the Shift to Operational Resilience
Chances are, as a BC practitioner, you will be among the first at your organization to realize the benefits of evolving toward the new approach. Resilience professionals tend to be uniquely aware of the threats facing the organizations and the high cost of disruptions.
Ultimately, a shift toward operational resilience will require buy-in and action from people at the highest levels. But there are things you as a resilience professional can do to help nudge your organization toward embracing OR. Here are a few of them:
Advocate for resilience thinking.
Help senior leaders and others understand the value of designing for continuity, not just recovery. Make the case for investments that reduce risk across the board.
Map continuity plans to critical services.
Work with business units to shift the focus from systems and departments to end-to-end services. Identify what’s truly essential to protect.
Collaborate across functions.
Break down silos and partner with IT, risk, compliance, and operations. Build a shared understanding of impact tolerances and interdependencies.
Keep learning.
Stay current on emerging OR frameworks, regulatory trends, and resilience standards. Ensure your expertise remains relevant and valuable as the field evolves.
By leaning into these activities, practitioners can help their organizations move from a focus on reaction to one on readiness.
Moving from Recovery to Resilience
The shift from business continuity to operational resilience represents a natural evolution in how organizations prepare for disruptions. As the threat environment grows more complex and expectations for 24/7 availability rise, operational resilience provides a higher standard, one focused on ensuring services continue, even when systems fail.
Resilience professionals are uniquely equipped to lead this transition. With their clear-eyed understanding of risks and commitment to protecting the organization, they can help guide their teams toward readiness, building resilience not just into systems, but into the very culture of the business.
Further Reading
- Tools of the Trade: Finding the Right Software to Manage Your BCM Program
- Budgeting for Resilience: How to Obtain Funding for Business Continuity in 2025
- Making the Grade: Navigating Compliance Challenges in Business Continuity Management
- Top 8 Risk Mitigation Controls for Operational Resilience
- Every Single Day: Make Risk Management Part of Your Company’s Culture
