Business Continuity
Business continuity is a company’s ability to keep running even when a key vendor raises prices, degrades support, or disappears. For websites and company systems that means knowing which dependencies are critical, having access to the code and documentation, and being able to at least estimate the cost of moving elsewhere. It ties into vendor lock and to operations you actually control.
Critical External Dependency: When a Vendor Becomes a Risk
Every company today depends on external technologies and vendors. We use cloud, SaaS services, payment gateways, accounting systems, hosting, or external developers. That is not a problem in itself. The problem starts the moment we cannot function without one particular vendor. That is called a critical external dependency. When does it become a problem? Picture an e-shop that has been running on a single platform for several years. It holds the website, the products, the orders, the stock, and the link to accounting.