Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Reviews

It is a structured review that answers a practical question: if your core systems, your office, or a critical vendor became unavailable tomorrow, how long could your business keep operating, and would your backup and recovery arrangements actually restore things in time? We map which processes and systems are genuinely critical, check whether your backup and disaster recovery setup would actually work if you needed it, and run a simulated disruption exercise to see how your team responds in practice — not just what the written plan says on paper.

It depends on your entity type. SEBI-regulated intermediaries, stock exchanges, depositories, and other Qualified Regulated Entities are required to maintain a documented and periodically tested BCP-DR framework with defined RTO/RPO targets under SEBI's Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework (CSCRF). Banks, NBFCs, and payment system operators face similar expectations under RBI's IT governance and risk framework, including periodic DR drills reported to the Board or IT Strategy Committee. Listed companies more broadly must address business continuity within the Risk Management Committee's policy under SEBI LODR Regulation 21 for the top 1,000 companies by market capitalisation. For unregulated private companies, there is no single statute naming this review, but Section 134(5)(e)'s internal financial controls representation is difficult to make credibly without knowing your financial systems can actually recover.

Both share the Business Impact Analysis and single-point-of-failure mapping methodology, because operational resilience is a common foundation. This BCP & DR Review goes deeper into the technical disaster recovery architecture — backup verification, replication testing, failover drills, DR site readiness — and is the right scope when fraud risk is not the immediate concern. The Business Continuity & Fraud Risk Assessment adds fraud triangle mapping and segregation-of-duties/access-rights testing on top of the continuity work, and is the right scope when the Board wants both operational resilience and fraud exposure assessed together. Many clients start with one and add the other in a later phase.

A Business Impact Analysis identifies which of your business processes and systems are genuinely critical, and for each, quantifies the Maximum Tolerable Downtime, the Recovery Time Objective (how quickly it must be restored), and the Recovery Point Objective (how much data loss, if any, is acceptable). Without a BIA, a DR plan has no basis for prioritisation — it either treats every system as equally urgent, which wastes recovery budget and effort, or is built around IT's assumptions rather than the business's actual tolerance. We always run the BIA first, involving business owners, not just IT; the DR architecture is designed and tested against its findings.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the maximum acceptable time between a disruption occurring and the affected system or process being restored to operation. Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss, measured in time — for example, an RPO of 4 hours means you can tolerate losing up to 4 hours of data (the gap since the last successful backup or replication point), but no more. Both are set per system or process based on business tolerance, not on what the current infrastructure happens to be capable of — which is exactly why many organisations discover during this review that their actual DR capability does not match the RTO/RPO the business genuinely needs.

A single point of failure is any person, vendor, system, or facility whose unavailability would materially disrupt a critical process, with no fallback in place. We identify these through structured interviews with process and IT owners, review of vendor and cloud contracts for sole-source dependencies, and technical review of infrastructure architecture for single-region or single-facility exposure. Key-person dependency — where only one individual genuinely understands how to execute a system failover or restore a specific backup — is one of the most common and most under-assessed single points of failure in mid-sized Indian businesses.

A written plan tells you what should happen; it does not tell you whether it actually would. Common gaps we find in existing plans: RTO/RPO figures that were guessed rather than derived from a real BIA, a DR environment that was provisioned once and never kept in sync with production changes, backup jobs that run but have never been test-restored, and contact lists referencing people who have since left the organisation. This review tests the plan against reality — through document review, technical verification, and a live tabletop exercise — rather than assuming a written document equals genuine readiness.

It means actually restoring data from a backup — in a controlled, non-production environment — and verifying that the restored data is complete, uncorrupted, and usable, rather than simply confirming that a backup job completed successfully. A backup job showing 'success' in a log only confirms the process ran; it does not confirm the resulting file can actually be restored into a working system. We verify whether your organisation has ever performed this test, and where it has not, we recommend and, where feasible, help coordinate a controlled test as part of the engagement.

A tabletop exercise is a facilitated, structured walkthrough of a realistic disruption scenario — for example, your core ERP becomes unavailable for 48 hours, or a ransomware event locks your primary file server — in which management and IT work through the actual decisions the written plan calls for: who is notified first, who has authority to declare an incident, what the manual workaround is, how customers and vendors are communicated with. This consistently surfaces gaps that a document review alone does not — an outdated contact list, an assumption that someone else holds a critical password, a step that reads clearly on paper but nobody has actually rehearsed.

Where feasible and where the client wants it in scope, yes — we coordinate a controlled failover test during a planned maintenance window, observe the actual recovery time achieved, and compare it against the stated RTO. Where a full production failover is judged too risky or disruptive to test directly, we design a scaled-down or non-production test that still validates the core mechanics — DNS/routing failover, application startup on the DR environment, data currency at the point of failover — without touching live production traffic.

Yes. Cloud hosting materially changes the DR conversation but does not eliminate it. Cloud providers guarantee infrastructure availability under their own SLAs, but the customer remains responsible for application-level recoverability, cross-region or cross-availability-zone redundancy configuration, backup retention within the cloud environment, and access continuity if an account or subscription itself is compromised or locked. We frequently find cloud-hosted businesses assuming the provider 'handles DR' when, in practice, no cross-region redundancy or independent backup has actually been configured — leaving a single-region outage as a genuine, untested risk.

A Cybersecurity Audit assesses the technical security posture of your IT environment — vulnerabilities, penetration-test findings, configuration weaknesses, access control design — focused on preventing and detecting a breach. A BCP & DR Review assumes a disruption has already occurred, regardless of cause, and assesses whether the organisation can keep operating and recover systems and data within acceptable time and data-loss tolerances. The two are complementary: a cybersecurity finding (for example, a ransomware vulnerability) is often the specific trigger scenario tested in the BCP-DR tabletop exercise, and we frequently recommend both together for organisations with material IT dependency.

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is the broader plan covering how the entire organisation continues critical operations through a disruption — people, processes, facilities, communications, and vendor relationships. A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is the more technical, IT-specific subset focused on restoring systems, applications, and data after an outage. A DRP is typically a component nested within, or run alongside, the broader BCP — restoring the IT system is necessary but not sufficient if, for example, staff cannot reach the facility or a key vendor relationship has also failed.

The most common findings, in rough order of frequency: backups that have never been test-restored; RTO/RPO figures that were never formally defined or agreed with business owners; a DR environment that exists on paper or in a contract but was never actually provisioned or kept current with production changes; a BCP-DR contact list referencing people no longer at the organisation; single-region cloud deployments with no cross-region redundancy despite an assumption that the cloud provider 'handles' resilience; and no one holding the actual access credentials needed to execute a failover during a real incident.

This review is scoped specifically to operational resilience and technical disaster recovery — it does not include fraud triangle mapping or segregation-of-duties testing. Where access-rights weaknesses are identified during the DR review that also have fraud implications (for example, an overly broad admin access group), we flag them, but a dedicated fraud risk assessment is a separate, deeper engagement. Clients wanting both together should scope our combined Business Continuity & Fraud Risk Assessment instead.

A written report covering: the Business Impact Analysis with RTO/RPO for each critical process and system; a single-point-of-failure register; a DR architecture assessment including backup and replication verification findings; results of any failover test or backup restoration test performed; a rated, prioritised findings register (Critical/High/Medium/Low) with management's response and remediation timeline; an updated or newly drafted BCP-DR plan reflecting the BIA findings; and a recommended follow-up review date. This is supplemented by a live presentation to the Audit Committee or Board and a facilitated tabletop exercise.

A first-time, entity-wide review for a mid-sized company typically takes 8–12 weeks from initial scoping to Board presentation, depending on the number of critical systems and locations covered, and whether a controlled failover test is included in scope. A more narrowly scoped review — for example, DR verification for a single critical system, or continuity planning for a single facility — can be completed faster. Subsequent cycles are generally quicker once the BIA and DR baseline already exist.

Fees depend on entity size, the number of critical systems and locations in scope, whether a full failover test is included, and the depth of backup-verification testing agreed. PNPC provides a written scope and fixed-fee proposal after an initial scoping conversation — we do not quote a fee before understanding what is actually being reviewed and why.

Where PNPC is also your statutory auditor, we structure this engagement with an appropriately separate team and reporting line to preserve independence, consistent with the Companies Act and applicable professional standards. For companies where independence rules restrict the statutory auditor from providing certain non-audit services, we advise upfront on whether PNPC can undertake this review or whether an independent firm should be engaged instead.

We design the engagement to minimise disruption. Most of the work involves document and architecture review, structured interviews with process and IT owners (typically 30–60 minutes each), and a facilitated tabletop exercise scheduled at a convenient time. Any backup restoration or failover test is planned and executed in a controlled, non-production window agreed with your IT team in advance — never sprung on a live production environment without notice.

No. This is a private, management-and-Board-facing advisory engagement — findings are reported to the Audit Committee, IT Strategy Committee, Risk Management Committee, or Board that commissioned it, not to SEBI, RBI, MCA, or any other regulator. Where an applicable regulatory framework (such as SEBI CSCRF or RBI's IT governance requirements) requires the entity itself to periodically self-certify or report DR testing outcomes, that reporting obligation rests with the entity under its own regulatory relationship — PNPC supports preparing the underlying evidence but does not file on the entity's behalf as a matter of course.

For SEBI/RBI-regulated entities and larger listed companies with an active Risk Management or IT Strategy Committee, we recommend revisiting the BIA and DR architecture every 1–2 years, or sooner following material change — a new core system, a cloud migration, a new data centre or region, significant infrastructure change, or a merger. For smaller unregulated companies, every 2–3 years, or ahead of a major milestone such as a fundraise or a significant enterprise client onboarding, is generally proportionate.

Institutional investors, acquirers, and large enterprise clients routinely assess operational resilience and DR maturity as part of due diligence or vendor onboarding — key-system dependency, untested backups, and single-region infrastructure are common findings that can affect valuation, deal terms, contract terms, or timeline if discovered late in a live process. Conducting this review proactively, well ahead of a transaction or onboarding, allows genuine remediation on your own schedule rather than under the pressure and scrutiny of active diligence.

Yes, where in scope. For group structures with a UAE or overseas subsidiary, PNPC's presence in both India and the UAE (Dubai office) allows a coordinated review across jurisdictions under a single engagement — assessing whether continuity planning and DR standards are applied consistently at the subsidiary level, and whether the parent Board has adequate visibility into subsidiary-level infrastructure risk, rather than requiring separate, disconnected reviews by unrelated local providers.

Yes. While we recommend an entity-wide first review where budget and time allow, we regularly scope a narrower review — for example, DR verification limited to the core ERP or finance system, or continuity planning limited to a single facility or business unit. A narrower first engagement is often the right starting point for an organisation new to structured DR testing, with broader coverage added in a subsequent phase.

Both, by design. The report includes specific, sequenced remediation recommendations — not just a description of each gap. Where the client wants implementation support (updating the BCP-DR document, coordinating a genuine failover test, redesigning backup retention policy, provisioning a DR environment), PNPC provides that as a follow-on engagement, kept appropriately separate from the review role where independence considerations require it.

A Big 4 firm brings brand recognition and large-team capacity, typically at a substantially higher fee, often with the day-to-day engagement led by junior staff. A specialist IT/DR consultancy may bring strong technical infrastructure expertise without the Chartered Accountancy grounding to connect findings back to the actual Companies Act, SEBI, and RBI governance obligations your Board needs represented accurately. PNPC combines nearly four decades of practising CA experience — including statutory audit, tax, and regulatory context that DR findings inevitably touch — with a senior-partner-led engagement model and coordinated India-UAE coverage for group structures.

Scoping consultation aligned to your actual driver and infrastructure profile; Business Impact Analysis with RTO/RPO quantification for critical processes and systems; single-point-of-failure mapping across people, vendors, systems, and facilities; review and update of existing BCP-DR documentation; technical verification of backup frequency, retention, and restoration testing; assessment of replication and failover architecture, including a controlled failover test where feasible; a facilitated tabletop exercise; a rated, prioritised findings register; management response capture; a written report; a live presentation to the Audit Committee/Board/IT Strategy Committee; and a follow-up verification review within the agreed remediation period.

Yes. Where the trigger is time-sensitive — an active investor or enterprise client due-diligence process with a tight timeline, or a recent near-miss outage the Board wants addressed urgently — we can scope an accelerated, focused review covering the highest-risk systems and the most material DR gaps first, with the full review following as a second phase. This trades some breadth for speed and is agreed explicitly at scoping, not assumed.

For listed companies and regulated entities, the Risk Management Committee (under SEBI LODR Regulation 21) or the Audit Committee is typically the body that commissions this review, receives the findings presentation, and tracks remediation progress across cycles. Even where no statutory Committee exists, we recommend the Board or a designated senior management group play this role — reviewing findings directly, assigning remediation ownership, and requiring evidence of follow-up closure rather than accepting a self-certified 'resolved' status.