Terms

Business Continuity

What is Business Continuity?

Business continuity refers to an organization's ability to maintain critical functions during and after unexpected events, such as natural disasters, cyber attacks, or supply chain disruptions. It involves proactive and reactive planning to prevent operational interruptions and ensure a swift return to normalcy when disruptions occur.

Understanding Key Components

Understanding the key components of business continuity is crucial for effective planning and management. Three main aspects to consider are:

  • Resiliency: The ability of an organization to withstand disruptions and continue functioning with minimal impact. This includes designing systems and processes that can adapt to changing circumstances.
  • Recovery: The process of restoring normal operations after a disruption. This involves identifying critical functions, setting recovery time objectives, and developing strategies to meet those objectives.
  • Contingency: Preparing for unexpected events by developing alternative plans and strategies. This includes identifying potential risks, assessing their impact, and creating contingency plans to address them.

Steps to Ensure Continuity

To ensure continuity, organizations should follow these steps:

  • Conduct a business impact analysis: Evaluate the importance of different business functions and identify the most critical elements to maintain during a disturbance.
  • Establish clear communication: Keep all stakeholders informed about their roles and responsibilities during an emergency, coordinate recovery efforts, and provide updates on the recovery process.
  • Regularly review and update plans: Ensure business continuity plans remain effective and relevant by incorporating changes in the organization's structure, technology, or processes, and lessons learned from previous incidents.
  • Identify critical functions: Understand organizational structures, dependencies, suppliers, and stakeholders through business continuity planning and management.
  • Create a response team: Develop a team responsible for implementing reactive measures to return to an acceptable level of operations following an interruption, disaster, or crisis.
  • Train and test: Prepare and exercise business continuity plans to ensure they perform as anticipated, and provide necessary training to staff.
  • Perform risk assessments: Identify potential hazards, their potential impact, and likelihood to help prioritize recovery efforts.
  • Develop recovery strategies: Set recovery time objectives (RTOs) for different systems, networks, or applications, and establish resource inventories, third-party agreements, and alternative spaces for mission-critical functions.
  • Document the plan: Create a comprehensive business continuity plan that considers unpredictable events and potential threats, enabling the organization to maintain at least minimal operations during a crisis.

Common Challenges

Organizations face several common challenges when it comes to business continuity, including security breaches, natural disasters, power outages, equipment failures, and sudden staff departures. Overcoming these challenges requires a proactive approach and strategic planning.

Some effective strategies to address these challenges include conducting a business impact analysis to evaluate the importance of different functions, ensuring systems and processes are resilient and can withstand disruptions, and having contingency plans in place for unforeseen events. By implementing these strategies, organizations can maintain critical functions, recover from interruptions more quickly, and minimize the risk of financial, personal, and reputational loss.

Best Practices

Adopting best practices in business continuity can help organizations maintain critical functions and recover from disruptions more effectively. Some of these practices include:

  • Evaluating Business Functions: Conduct a business impact analysis to assess the importance of different business functions.
  • Maintaining Critical Elements: Create a plan to maintain the most critical elements during a disturbance.
  • Testing Procedures: Test tools and disaster recovery procedures before an actual disaster occurs.
  • Proactive Measures: Implement proactive measures to prevent operational interruptions, crises, and disasters.
  • Reactive Measures: Develop measures to enable the organization to return to acceptable operations within a desired timescale after an interruption, disaster, or crisis.
  • Risk Awareness Culture: Encourage a culture where employees are aware of everyday risks and their responsibility to report, manage, and mitigate these risks.
  • Clear Guidelines: Establish clear and comprehensive guidelines for maintaining operations during disruptions.
  • Response Prioritization: Define different levels of response, prioritizing the most vital functions and scheduling less critical functions to come back online later.
  • Flexible Response Plan: Create a flexible response plan to address potential risks, detailing how these risks will affect operations and outlining safeguards and procedures for disaster scenarios.

Other terms

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Sales Prospecting Techniques

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Sales Prospecting Techniques

Data-Driven Marketing

Data-driven marketing uses customer data to inform marketing decisions, optimize campaigns, and deliver personalized experiences to consumers.

Data-Driven Marketing

Sales Prospecting

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Closed Opportunities

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Closed Opportunities

Competitive Analysis

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Data Privacy

Data privacy is an individual's right to control their personal information, including how it's collected, processed, stored, and shared.

Data Privacy

Cohort Analysis

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Cohort Analysis

Database Management

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Database Management

Buying Signal

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Sales Bundle

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Version Control Systems

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Version Control Systems

Channel Sales

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Channel Sales

FAB Technique

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FAB Technique

Bad Leads

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Product-Led Growth

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a business strategy where the product itself drives user acquisition, conversion, and expansion.

Product-Led Growth

Real-time Data Processing

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Real-time Data Processing

Funnel Optimization

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B2B2C

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Digital Sales Room

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Digital Sales Room

Data Management Platform

A Data Management Platform (DMP) is a software that collects and organizes audience data from various sources for targeted marketing efforts.

Data Management Platform

Serviceable Obtainable Market

Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) is the portion of the market you can realistically capture with your current resources, sales, and marketing.

Serviceable Obtainable Market

Inside Sales Rep

An inside sales rep sells products or services remotely from an office, using digital tools like phone and email to connect with customers.

Inside Sales Rep

Virtual Selling

Virtual selling is the process of selling to customers remotely using technology like video calls, rather than meeting them in person.

Virtual Selling

Buying Criteria

Buying criteria are the specific requirements and standards a customer uses to evaluate products or services before making a decision.

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Business Process Management

Learn about business process management, including benefits of implementing BPM, steps to effective BPM, common BPM mistakes to avoid, & BPM tools and software.

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Discount Strategies

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Sales Development Representative (SDR)

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Sales Development Representative (SDR)

Shipping Solutions

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Shipping Solutions

Contact Discovery

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Contact Discovery

Accounts Payable

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Accounts Payable

Knowledge Base

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Knowledge Base

Cold Call

Cold calling is a sales technique where reps contact potential customers who have had no prior interaction with their company or product.

Cold Call

Cloud-based CRM

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Cloud-based CRM

Sales Enablement Platform

A sales enablement platform centralizes content, training, and analytics to help sales teams engage buyers and effectively close deals.

Sales Enablement Platform

Sales Enablement

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Sales Enablement

Simple Object Access Protocol Application Programming Interface

A Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) API is a web service that uses XML to exchange structured information between different applications.

Simple Object Access Protocol Application Programming Interface

Accessibility Testing

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Accessibility Testing

Sales Rep Training

Sales rep training is the process of equipping your sales team with the skills, knowledge, and tools to effectively sell and hit their targets.

Sales Rep Training

Signaling

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Signaling

Channel Marketing

Channel marketing is a strategy where a company sells its products or services through third-party partners, like resellers or affiliates.

Channel Marketing

Overcoming Objections

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Overcoming Objections

Generic Keywords

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Generic Keywords

Sales Pipeline Velocity Formula

The sales pipeline velocity formula is a key metric that measures how quickly deals move through your pipeline and turn into revenue.

Sales Pipeline Velocity Formula

Direct Mail

Direct mail is a marketing method where businesses send physical promotional materials directly to potential customers' mailboxes.

Direct Mail

Gated Content

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Gated Content

Kanban

Kanban is a visual project management method that uses a board to visualize workflow, limit work-in-progress, and maximize team efficiency.

Kanban

Stakeholder

A stakeholder is any individual, group, or party that has an interest in an organization and the outcomes of its actions.

Stakeholder

CSS

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is the code that styles a website. It controls the colors, fonts, layout, and overall look of a web page.

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Sales Strategy

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Drupal

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API

An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other and exchange information.

API

Letter of Intent

A Letter of Intent (LOI) is a document declaring the preliminary commitment of one party to do business with another, outlining the chief terms.

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Data Pipelines

A data pipeline is a set of automated processes that move raw data from various sources to a destination for storage and analysis.

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Master Service Agreement

A Master Service Agreement (MSA) is a foundational contract that sets the general terms for an ongoing business relationship between two parties.

Master Service Agreement

Deal-Flow

Deal flow refers to the stream of business proposals and investment opportunities that a company or investor receives.

Deal-Flow

Value-Added Reseller

A Value-Added Reseller (VAR) is a company that adds features or services to an existing product, then resells it as an integrated solution.

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80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule, or Pareto Principle, posits that 80% of results come from just 20% of the effort. It's a key concept for prioritization.

80/20 Rule

B2B Sales Channels

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Customer Lifecycle

The customer lifecycle is the journey a person takes from first becoming aware of your brand to becoming a loyal, repeat customer.

Customer Lifecycle

High Availability

High availability (HA) describes a system's capacity to function continuously with minimal downtime, ensuring consistent operational performance.

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Sales Workflows

Sales workflows are a set of automated actions that streamline the sales process, helping teams engage leads consistently and close deals faster.

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Predictive Lead Scoring

Predictive lead scoring uses AI to analyze data and rank leads by their likelihood to convert, helping sales teams prioritize their efforts.

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Subject Matter Expert

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) is an individual with profound knowledge and authority in a particular area, topic, or industry.

Subject Matter Expert

Decision Maker

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Decision Maker

Target Buying Stage

The Target Buying Stage identifies a prospect's position in the buying journey, from initial awareness to the final decision to purchase.

Target Buying Stage

PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model where businesses pay a fee each time one of their online ads is clicked by a user.

PPC

No Forms

No Forms is a method for capturing lead data directly from your website visitors' profiles without requiring them to fill out any forms.

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Feature Flags

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Feature Flags

Account-Based Advertising

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Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost a business spends to gain a new customer. It includes all sales and marketing expenses.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Lookalike Audiences

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Page Views

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Product Recommendations

Product recommendations are a marketing strategy that uses customer data to suggest relevant products, boosting sales and customer engagement.

Product Recommendations

Progressive Web Apps

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Progressive Web Apps

Sales Plan Template

A sales plan template is a reusable document that outlines your sales strategy, goals, and tactics, providing a clear roadmap for your team.

Sales Plan Template

Consumer Buying Behavior

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Consumer Buying Behavior

Content Rights Management

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Content Rights Management

Consideration Buying Stage

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Consideration Buying Stage

No Cold Calls

No Cold Calls is a sales strategy that replaces unsolicited calls with warm outreach to prospects who have already demonstrated interest.

No Cold Calls

Drip Campaign

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Drip Campaign

Sales Productivity

Sales productivity is the measure of a sales team's efficiency, focusing on maximizing revenue generation while minimizing the resources spent.

Sales Productivity

Network Monitoring

Network monitoring is the continuous process of tracking a computer network's performance and health to detect and resolve issues proactively.

Network Monitoring

Unit Economics

Unit economics are the direct revenues and costs of a business calculated on a per-unit basis, revealing its fundamental profitability.

Unit Economics

Field Sales Rep

A field sales representative, or outside sales rep, travels to meet prospects in person, selling products or services directly within their territory.

Field Sales Rep

Geo-Fencing

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Geo-Fencing

Email Verification

Email verification is the process of confirming that an email address is valid and deliverable, which helps improve campaign performance.

Email Verification

Customer Data Platform (CDP)

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) centralizes customer data from all sources to create a complete, unified profile for each individual customer.

Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs are marketing strategies designed to reward repeat customers. They offer incentives like discounts or exclusive access to encourage retention.

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Load Balancing

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Load Balancing

Deal Closing

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Data Mining

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Warm Email

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Warm Email

Clustering

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Firewall

A firewall is a digital barrier that protects a network by monitoring and controlling traffic, blocking unauthorized access and malicious content.

Firewall

Email Cadence

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Email Cadence

Lead Enrichment

Lead enrichment adds third-party data to your raw lead lists, creating fuller prospect profiles for more effective and personalized outreach.

Lead Enrichment

Account-Based Everything

Account-Based Everything (ABE) is a strategy aligning sales, marketing, and success teams to focus on a specific set of high-value accounts.

Account-Based Everything

MEDDICC

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MEDDICC

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable, recurring income a business expects to receive each month from all active subscriptions.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Warm Outreach

Warm outreach is contacting prospects with whom you have a pre-existing connection, like a mutual contact, making your message more personal and effective.

Warm Outreach