Modern organisations depend on a thin chain of electricity, connectivity, suppliers, systems and skilled people, and the loss of any link can halt revenue within hours. Regulators in banking, insurance and public services increasingly ask institutions to show that they can keep critical services running through disruption, not just recover afterwards. Boards want evidence, which means plans that have been tested and results that are recorded.

The Applied Business Continuity and Operational Resilience programme moves participants step by step through building a working capability. It starts with governance and policy, then applies business impact analysis and risk assessment to identify the activities that matter most and the time within which they must be restored. Participants select recovery strategies, write plans for continuity, IT disaster recovery and crisis response, and design exercises that expose weaknesses before an incident does. The closing sessions extend the discipline to operational resilience, mapping critical services to the people, processes, technology and third parties behind them.

Everything is done in working sessions. Using a case organisation or their own, participants produce draft documents they can adapt, and take part in a facilitated simulation that tests their decisions under time pressure.

After completing the course, participants will be able to:

• Establish a continuity policy, governance structure and scope aligned to ISO 22301.
• Conduct a business impact analysis and determine recovery time and recovery point objectives.
• Assess disruption threats, dependencies and single points of failure.
• Select continuity strategies for staff, premises, technology and suppliers.
• Develop business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis communication plans.
• Design, run and evaluate tabletop and functional exercises.
• Define critical services and impact tolerances for operational resilience.
• Report programme maturity and exercise outcomes to senior management.

The course is relevant for people who build, maintain or depend on continuity arrangements, including:

• Business continuity and resilience coordinators
• Operations, facilities and service delivery managers
• Risk, compliance and internal audit officers
• ICT managers and disaster recovery leads
• Bank, insurance and SACCO operations staff
• Emergency preparedness officers in county and national government
• Supply chain and vendor management professionals
• Hospital, school and utility administrators

Participants take away:

• A completed business impact analysis template with prioritised activities.
• Draft continuity and incident response plans using a proven structure.
• A calendar of exercises with scenarios and success measures.
• A crisis communications checklist with holding statements.
• A map of critical services and their dependencies.
• A programme maturity self-assessment to guide the next twelve months.

The programme treats continuity as a craft to be rehearsed, so each day centres on producing and testing something. Methods include:

• Case organisation used throughout to build each document in sequence
• Templates for BIA, recovery plans, action cards and exercise scripts
• A timed tabletop simulation with injects that change as decisions are made
• Group critique of sample plans to spot gaps
• Brief expert inputs tied to ISO 22301 requirements

Attendance at the sessions and completion of the practical work earns each participant a CPD-accredited Certificate of Completion from Vision Reach Global Consultancy.