Ensuring that your critical vendor can survive in the face of disaster helps ensure that your business can also survive
No doubt your organization has put a lot of time, thought and resources into your own Business Continuity plan and testing, but you need to have replicated that effort when it comes to assessing the same for your third-party providers. Business continuity allows you to ensure that your key operations, products and services continue to be delivered either in full or at a predetermined, and accepted, level of availability.
If your own business impact analysis shows that your organization can’t operate effectively while a vendor is unavailable, then you should be thoroughly evaluating their business continuity and disaster recovery plans and understand the procedures they have in place to handle a business impacting event.
Regulatory guidance and sound business practices dictate that you should conduct business continuity and disaster recovery due diligence and planning on your critical and high risk vendors.