Most organisations view business continuity as a mundane compliance process: a plan developed, signed off on, and set aside until the next audit. But when disruption arises, the distinction between “having a plan” and “being prepared” hits home.
In a region where operations are regularly tested by natural calamities, infrastructure challenges, and fast-changing business environments, a once-a-year review simply doesn’t suffice. Business continuity today must evolve into a continuous capability — one that adapts as quickly as risks change.
What you'll find in this article
Why a Static Plan Isn’t Enough
Programs for continuity are all too frequently viewed as one-time endeavors. Written, approved documents are rarely reviewed again until a crisis reveals their shortcomings. Plans that are “finished as a one-off exercise and filed away,” as Diligent notes, frequently fall through when it counts most.
In a similar vein, ISACA’s research serves as a reminder that continuity risks encompass not only IT outages but also supply chains, workforce preparedness, communications, and physical infrastructure. To put it briefly, business continuity now refers to sustaining operational capacity in the face of disruption rather than merely recovering.
Case Study: Turning Preparedness into a Continuous Practice
The Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC), a diversified conglomerate with interests in infrastructure, education, and finance, is a potent illustration of continuous capability in action. Businesses and communities were forced to halt operations after the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Cebu destroyed over 62,000 homes, damaged 700 structures, and affected 180,000 families.
Instead of depending only on pre-existing plans, YGC combined Disaster Risk Management (DRM), a model created to assist its organizations in remaining operational in the face of frequent natural disasters, with Business Continuity Management (BCM). The organization strengthened crisis communication procedures, established Elite Emergency Response Teams (EERTs), and provided situational response and awareness training to all of its affiliates.
According to YGC’s leadership, the goal is to ensure that every affiliate understands its role when emergencies arise and that continuity is a shared, everyday responsibility. As YGC president Lorenzo Tan stated:
“Resilience is not a slogan. It should be a system.”
This approach shows how embedding continuity into culture — not confining it to documentation — builds genuine resilience.
(Source: Manila Standard – Yuchengco Group integrates Business Continuity and Disaster Risk Strategy to boost resilience)
What It Means to Build a Continuous Capability
The ISO says that business continuity is “the ability of an organization to keep delivering goods and services on time and at a set capacity during a disruption.”
That definition changes the focus from “what’s written” to “what works” and from documentation to operational ability.
Business continuity management (BCM) is the most important step between a crisis and full recovery. It makes sure that even though a disruption may slow things down, it doesn’t stop them completely.
Key Components of a Continuous Capability:
- Skill Assessment:
Regularly check your current skills to find any gaps and make sure your teams are ready for both planned and unplanned changes. - Training and Development:
Go beyond theory. Combine formal learning with on-the-job practice to build confidence and reinforce continuity-related decision-making. - Knowledge Management:
Set up ways to collect, share, and use lessons learned from past projects, exercises, and incidents. Even when people change jobs, institutional knowledge keeps resilience strong.
- Continuous Improvement Mindset:
Foster a workplace culture where employees are encouraged to provide feedback, identify inefficiencies, and implement solutions using structured approaches such as the Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA) cycle. - Leadership Development:
Equip leaders to champion, coach, and model continuous improvement. Leadership commitment is what turns resilience from a project into a long-term organisational habit. - Performance Management:
Measure the impact of improvement initiatives. Align capability-building with performance metrics to ensure continuity efforts translate into tangible operational gains.
How Often Should You Review Your Business Continuity Capability
In a high-risk environment, continuity can’t be static. Best practices recommend:
- Comprehensive annual review of your continuity strategy, including Business Impact Analysis and recovery objectives.
- Quarterly or semi-annual checks for organisations undergoing frequent operational or technological change.
- Trigger-based reviews whenever you introduce new systems, vendors, or leadership roles — or when an incident exposes weaknesses.
- Micro-updates every six months to validate contacts, suppliers, and communication channels.
The goal isn’t more paperwork, it’s ensuring the plan reflects today’s realities, not last year’s.
Five Practices That Build Continuous Capability
1. Align Capability-Building with Strategic Objectives
For capability development to add real value, it must directly support the organisation’s strategic goals.
- Target skills with impact: Focus on building the competencies, processes, and tools that help achieve critical business outcomes.
- Start small, then scale: Launch with high-impact, visible projects that demonstrate measurable results. Early wins build credibility and momentum for larger initiatives.
2. Foster a Data-Driven, Customer-Focused Mindset
Every improvement should be grounded in facts and outcomes, not assumptions.
- Measure key performance indicators (KPIs): Define clear metrics to track progress and impact. Continuous measurement ensures every improvement effort delivers tangible results.
- Listen to the customer: Use feedback from internal and external customers to guide where improvement efforts should focus. Real resilience is measured by how well you continue to serve your customers during disruption.
3. Empower Employees and Build Ownership
Sustainable capability depends on the people who use and evolve it.
- Involve employees in problem-solving: Those closest to the work often know where inefficiencies lie. Engaging them in solution design builds ownership and practical insight.
- Encourage collaboration: Break down silos and enable cross-functional learning. Knowledge-sharing platforms, open discussions, and team-based projects foster innovation and speed up improvement cycles.
4. Integrate Learning into Daily Workflows
Learning should happen as part of work, not apart from it.
- Leverage on-the-job training: Encourage learning through real projects and experiences, following the 70/20/10 model — where most learning comes from doing.
- Provide just-in-time (JIT) resources: Make learning content, expert advice, and digital tools easily available whenever employees need them. This makes capability growth continuous and practical.
5. Standardise Successful Changes and Sustain Progress
To make improvements last, they need to become part of how the organisation operates.
- Standardise procedures: Document proven processes and best practices so they’re consistent and scalable across teams. Frameworks like 5S help embed discipline and order into daily work.
- Reinforce with governance: Align incentives, KPIs, and leadership behaviour with desired outcomes. Leaders must model the change — consistency at the top reinforces accountability throughout the organisation.
A Quick Self-Check
Ask yourself:
- Has your business tried out its continuity plan in the last six months?
- Would your response still work if a key supplier or system went offline today?
- Do your employees know what to do without having to read a manual?
If you’re uncertain about any of these answers, chances are your business continuity is still a plan — not yet a capability.
If you’re looking to upskill your team in business continuity, our public training programs can help. Or, we’re just an email away to design a customized training tailored to your organization’s needs.
Remember, business continuity isn’t a binder to maintain — it’s a system to sustain. The organizations that thrive through disruption are those that treat continuity as a living, evolving capability, not an annual checklist.