Business Continuity Planning in Houston
Continuity planning answers one question: when the office is closed and the systems are down, what does the company still do and who does it? We write that down with your team, rehearse it, and keep it current so the plan is not older than half your staff.
The Problem
Most Houston companies have a hurricane plan that consists of a group text and the hope that whoever answers knows what to do. Leadership assumes IT has it covered, IT assumes leadership will decide when to close, and nobody has written down who declares an interruption or who calls the largest customers. Payroll deadlines do not move because a bayou came up. Neither do vessel schedules, patient appointments, or a contractual notification window after a breach. When staff scatter to homes across five counties, the questions that surface are basic: who can approve a payment, who has the customer list, which laptop has the file, and who tells the client we are still operating.
The Solution
We build the plan around your operations, not around a generic template with a hurricane chapter. Sentinel-Pros runs a business impact analysis to identify which functions genuinely cannot pause, then defines the manual workarounds, alternate work locations, communication paths, and decision authority that keep those functions moving. Technology recovery is one part of it, sitting alongside people, facilities, vendors, and customer communication. The plan names individuals and backups for every role, because a plan that says the team will coordinate is not a plan. Development is delivered remotely through structured working sessions, and because Houston is home base we facilitate tabletop exercises on-site across the metro when getting your leadership in one room is worth it.
Core Responsibilities
Understanding the business first
The plan itself
Keeping it alive
Engagement Process
Impact analysis
Working sessions with department leaders to establish what each function does, what it depends on, and how long it can genuinely be interrupted before revenue or obligations are hit.
Strategy decisions
For each critical function we choose an approach: remote operation, an alternate site, a manual process, or a vendor arrangement. Leadership approves the trade-offs and the cost.
Write the plan
Roles, contact trees, decision authority, technology recovery steps, and customer communication go into a short usable document, not a binder that dies on a shelf.
Exercise and maintain
We run a tabletop against a realistic scenario, capture what did not work, revise, and set a review cadence tied to your calendar and to storm season.
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Common Questions
Is this the same as our disaster recovery plan?
No, though they connect. Disaster recovery covers restoring systems and data. Continuity planning covers what the company does while those systems are still down, including who decides, who works from where, and how customers are kept informed. One is a technical procedure, the other is a management decision framework.
Our staff live all over the Houston area. How does the plan handle that?
It plans for exactly that. Different parts of Harris County and the surrounding counties flood and lose power at different times, so the plan assumes partial availability rather than everyone in or everyone out. Roles get named alternates, and check-in procedures confirm who is safe and who is able to work before assignments are made.
A customer contract requires a continuity plan. Will this satisfy that?
In most cases yes, and we build it against the language in your contract or questionnaire so the answer is defensible. Many supplier agreements in energy, healthcare, and defense supply chains now require both a documented plan and evidence of testing. The tabletop record is what proves the second part.
How long does this take and how much of my team's time does it use?
Most of the effort is a handful of focused sessions with department leaders plus a tabletop exercise. We do the writing between sessions so your people are interviewed rather than assigned homework. The schedule is agreed at the start and works around your operating calendar.
We are a small company. Is a formal plan overkill?
Smaller companies usually need it more, because one unavailable person can stop an entire function. The plan for a thirty person firm is short, which is a feature. Pricing is scoped on a discovery call and ongoing maintenance is delivered as a fixed monthly retainer.
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BOOK A CONSULTATIONBusiness Continuity Planning for Houston, Texas
Nowhere makes the case for continuity planning as plainly as Houston, and yet plans here are usually verbal. The metro spans Harris County and its neighbors, and a single storm can leave a Katy office dry, a Clear Lake office without power, and a Downtown tower without an accessible parking garage on the same morning. That variability is what a real plan handles. Clinics and physician groups near the Texas Medical Center must decide how appointments are rescheduled and how urgent patient records stay reachable when staff cannot travel. Freight forwarders, customs brokers, and terminal service firms around the Port of Houston work against vessel windows and cargo release deadlines that no weather event postpones, so manual fallback procedures matter as much as system recovery. Energy operators and services companies along the Energy Corridor coordinate field crews and contractors who need dispatch and safety communication even when the office is closed. Aerospace and defense suppliers near NASA Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake carry contractual notification and delivery obligations that continue during a regional emergency. Professional services firms Downtown and in the Galleria face deadlines set by courts, filings, and closings rather than by their own calendar. In each case the question is the same and rarely written down: with the building shut, who decides, who works, and who calls the customer.
See the statewide overview of Business Continuity Planning or all services available in Houston.