SmartSuite for the Business Continuity Manager
The Business Continuity Manager maintains continuity plans, recovery procedures, contact trees and incident coordination for the organization. They keep plans version-controlled and linked to business functions and BIAs, document exercises and their results, and share continuity updates across teams.
What you own
The Business Continuity Manager maintains continuity plans, recovery procedures, contact trees and incident coordination for the organization.
- Develop and maintain continuity and recovery plans for business functions
- Link plans to BIAs, critical processes and dependencies
- Maintain contact trees, call-out and notification arrangements
- Plan and document recovery exercises and results
- Coordinate the continuity response during incidents
- Track plan reviews, approvals and corrective actions
- Report recovery readiness to the resilience lead
At a glance
The GRC processes this role owns, touches and depends on.
Owns
accountable for the process
Touches
contributes or approves
Depends on
consumes its output
How the GRC processes connect
Three lines of defense set the frame; the chain shows where each process hands off to the next. Colors follow the role: navy is owned, blue is touched, gray is depended on.
Reporting lines
Who this role reports to, who reports to them, and the peers they work with most.
Reports to
Direct reports
Works closely with
How SmartSuite supports this role
Lead
Operational resilience. Keeps continuity plans version-controlled and linked to key business functions and BIAs, with automated reminders for reviews and exercises.
Risk management. Links BIAs to enterprise risks and mitigation plans so continuity coverage follows the risk register.
Issues and actions. Tracks exercise results and corrective actions to closure.
Reporting. Provides recovery readiness dashboards for continuous improvement.
Products this role uses most
Industry reference
ISO 22301:2019 and its guidance standard ISO 22313 define the program: business impact analysis, risk assessment, strategies, documented plans and an exercise program. The BCI Good Practice Guidelines and DRI Professional Practices describe the practitioner's work.
Sector regulators test the plans. Banks are examined against the FFIEC Business Continuity Management booklet (2019) and, in the UK and EU, operational resilience rules and DORA; hospitals must meet CMS emergency preparedness rules, including annual testing; US federal agencies follow FEMA's Federal Continuity Directive 1 and NIST SP 800-34; technology providers evidence continuity for SOC 2 availability and ISO 27001 Annex A.
Related roles
Explore Further
Guides and definitions from the GRC Knowledge Center and the What-is glossary, chosen for this role.
Frequently asked questions
What does a Business Continuity Manager own?
The Business Continuity Manager owns the continuity and recovery plans for business functions, their links to BIAs, critical processes and dependencies, the contact trees and notification arrangements, the exercise program and its results, and the continuity response during incidents. They track plan reviews, approvals and corrective actions and report recovery readiness to the Head of Operational Resilience. In SmartSuite the plans, BIAs, exercises and incidents live in Operational Resilience, Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and Crisis Management.
How does SmartSuite help a Business Continuity Manager keep plans current?
SmartSuite keeps continuity plans version-controlled in Operational Resilience and linked to the key business functions and BIAs they protect, with automated reminders for reviews and exercises. The manager sees which plans are due for review, which have been approved in their current version and which exercises are scheduled, and a change in a BIA is visible on the plans that depend on it. Plan owners receive their reminders directly.
How are BIAs connected to the enterprise risk register?
BIAs are linked to enterprise risks and their mitigation plans, so continuity coverage follows the risk register rather than being maintained as a separate exercise. When the Operational Risk Manager rates a risk higher, the manager can see which business functions and plans it touches; when a BIA shows a function is more critical than assumed, that feeds back to the risk owner. Both teams work from one set of records.
How are exercise results and corrective actions followed to closure?
Exercise results are recorded against the plan exercised, and the corrective actions they generate go into Issues Management with owners and dates, tracked to closure. That gives the manager a history per plan: what was exercised, what failed, what was agreed and whether it was done before the next exercise. Recovery Plan Owners see their own actions, and the Business Continuity Analyst aggregates results across the program.
How does the Business Continuity Manager report recovery readiness?
The manager reports recovery readiness to the Head of Operational Resilience from dashboards SmartSuite builds on the plan, exercise and action records, so readiness is a current state rather than a quarterly compilation. The same dashboards support continuous improvement: the manager can see which functions lag on reviews or exercises and work with the IT Disaster Recovery Lead and Facilities Director on the dependencies those plans rely on.
How does SmartSuite support the continuity response during an incident?
During an incident the manager coordinates the continuity response in Crisis Management, where the plans, contact trees and notification arrangements already maintained in SmartSuite are available to the response team rather than retrieved from a file share. Actions taken during the response are recorded as they happen, which gives the Crisis Management Lead a live picture and leaves the record needed for the post-incident review and for the regulators who sample it.
Where should a Business Continuity Manager start in SmartSuite?
Start with the continuity plan register: load each plan in Operational Resilience with its owner, review cycle and linked business function, and link it to its BIA so reminders and dependencies work from the start. New customers can start with SmartSuite Onboarding, a guided four-week program around one or two priority workflows. The first exercise and its corrective actions then run through Operational Resilience and Issues Management.
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