COMPEL Glossary / business-continuity
Business Continuity
Business continuity planning ensures that an organization's critical functions can continue during and after disruptions, including AI system failures, data breaches, infrastructure outages, and vendor collapses.
What this means in practice
It encompasses risk assessment, contingency planning, backup procedures, failover mechanisms, communication protocols, and regular testing through tabletop exercises and simulations. For organizations that have embedded AI into core business processes, business continuity must explicitly address AI-specific scenarios such as model degradation, training data corruption, and the sudden unavailability of cloud AI services. In COMPEL, business continuity connects to the operational resilience framework in Module 2.4 and the strategic risk and resilience content in Module 3.1, Article 9, where it is treated as both a governance requirement and a strategic capability.
Why it matters
Organizations that embed AI into core business processes without adequate continuity planning face catastrophic operational risk when AI systems fail. AI-specific failure scenarios — model degradation, training data corruption, cloud AI service unavailability — require contingency plans beyond traditional IT disaster recovery. Business continuity planning ensures critical functions survive AI disruptions, protecting revenue, customer trust, and regulatory compliance.
How COMPEL uses it
Business continuity connects to the operational resilience framework assessed during the Calibrate stage within both the Governance and Technology pillars. The Model stage designs AI-specific continuity plans including fallback procedures for model failure. During Produce, continuity measures are implemented and tested through tabletop exercises. The Evaluate stage validates continuity readiness through simulation, and the Learn stage incorporates lessons from any actual disruption events.
Related Terms
Other glossary terms mentioned in this entry's definition and context.