Designing Business Continuity and Recovery System

Course Overview 

This course empowers senior finance and operations leaders, including CFOs, COOs, and business owners, to design and implement robust Business Continuity and Recovery Systems (BCRS). Participants will learn how to proactively identify operational and financial risks, minimize disruption, maintain financial stability, and create practical recovery plans for crisis scenarios (e.g., cyberattacks, pandemics, economic shocks, natural disasters and attrition).

The course focuses on integrating finance, operations, and strategy to ensure resilience, compliance, and stakeholder confidence during disruptions.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the core principles and components of Business Continuity and Recovery Planning.
• Identify and assess key financial and operational risks across the business.
• Design continuity strategies to protect revenue, cash flow, systems, and critical processes.
• Develop a business recovery roadmap, including roles, timelines, and trigger actions.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory standards and stakeholder expectations.
• Create and test an actionable Business Continuity and Recovery Plan tailored to their function or organization.

Training Content

DAY 1 – Introduction to Business Continuity and Recovery

Session 1: What is Business Continuity Planning (BCP) vs. Disaster Recovery (DR)?

Session 2: The cost of unpreparedness: case studies of financial and reputational damage

Session 3: Benefits of BCR systems to finance, operations, and shareholder value

Session 4: Regulatory requirements and global standards (e.g., ISO 22301)

DAY 2 – Risk Identification and Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

Session 5: Identifying operational, financial, and compliance risks

Session 6: Conducting a Business Impact Analysis: process, people, technology, cash

Session 7: Defining critical business functions and acceptable downtime

Session 8: Financial impact mapping: cost of downtime, liquidity gaps, and disruption

DAY 3 – Designing the Business Continuity Strategy

Session 9: Prioritizing continuity for essential functions: finance, payroll, procurement, etc

Session 10: Financial preparedness: reserves, credit access, and vendor commitments

Session11: Continuity strategies: backup processes, alternate suppliers, remote work models

Session 12: Embedding business continuity into financial and operational planning