These terms get used interchangeably, and that confusion costs companies real money. A business continuity plan keeps the whole operation running during a disruption, covering staff, communication, workspace, and vendors, and it is measured by how long each function can be down before the business is in trouble. A disaster recovery plan is the IT half of that effort. It owns the servers, backups, applications, and networks, and its yardstick is recovery time and recovery point objectives: how fast systems must come back and how much data you can afford to lose.
The split shows up in what each one actually does when something breaks. Continuity reroutes calls, relocates staff, and notifies clients so the business keeps answering the phone. Disaster recovery fails over to a backup appliance and restores the data those people need to work. A backup and disaster recovery strategy is the engine underneath both, which is why the two plans are written together rather than in isolation.
The federal Ready.gov program is direct on this point: an IT disaster recovery plan should be built alongside the business continuity plan, with recovery priorities and timelines set by what the business actually needs to survive.
