Retail resilience checklist

Your practical guide to identifying continuity gaps and building operational resilience across your business.

Retailers are facing increasing pressure to stay operational, despite disruptions ranging from supplier delays and POS failures to staffing shortages and cybercrime. The retail resilience checklist is designed to help you take stock of your current continuity readiness and uncover where improvements are needed.

You’ll assess six core areas:

• Operational resilience planning
• Multi-site risk mitigation
• Supply chain continuity
• Workforce readiness
• Scenario testing and compliance
• Software capabilities to support execution

Each section includes key questions and actionable insights to evaluate your preparedness and helps you understand what is required in planning for resilience. In addition to this, each point explains where modern business continuity management (BCM) software can help. This approach means that the following guide also serves a secondary purpose. It provides useful information on what to look for when selecting BCM planning software.

Whether you’re responsible for a single store or a nationwide chain, this checklist helps you move from reactive recovery to proactive resilience.

Operational resilience planning

• Have you identified your minimum viable company (MVC)?
  Your BCM software should offer structured tools and templates to help you define your most critical services and systems, so you can focus on what truly matters during a disruption.
• Do you have tested processes for service continuity?
  BCM software should include automated plan testing, version control, and scheduled reviews to keep continuity documents current and actionable.
• Have you mapped your key retail dependencies (e.g. PoS, logistics, payment platforms)?
  The right software platform should visually link interdependencies so you can quickly see how an incident in one area impacts others.
• Are continuity plans accessible and understood at all levels?
  Ensure the platform supports role-specific access and mobile-friendly playbooks so frontline staff know exactly what to do when disruption hits.

Multi-site retail risk mitigation

• Can you manage continuity centrally across multiple locations?
  Your BCM software should provide a real-time, centralised view of resilience plans across all sites, with drill-down capabilities for local variations.
• Are plans standardised yet store-specific?
  Look for software that has the ability to clone master templates while allowing local customisation to account for unique store layouts, risks, or operations.
• Do site managers have clear local playbooks and responsibilities?
  BCM software should support location-specific response workflows that can be deployed instantly when needed.

 Supply chain resilience

• Do you have visibility into supplier risk and alternatives?
  Effective continuity software should capture supplier information, track SLAs, and provide contingency planning features for supplier failure.
• Have you tested plans for logistics or supplier disruption?
  Ensure the software enables simulation and impact analysis to evaluate how supplier issues affect your operations.
• Can you track upstream issues and alert key stakeholders?
  Real-time alerts, workflows, and routing logic should be built-in to your software to ensure rapid escalation and team mobilisation.

Workforce readiness

• Are staff trained and aware of their continuity roles?
  Choose software that lets you assign tasks, manage training records, and automate role-based instructions.
• Do you have emergency communication workflows?
  Communication tools should be integrated into the software platform, allowing for fast updates via SMS, email, or app notifications.
• Have you identified essential vs. optional roles in a crisis?
  The software should allow tagging of critical personnel and offer visibility into resource gaps during emergencies.

Scenario testing and compliance

• Do you run simulations regularly?
  Your software should support configurable test scenarios, log outcomes, and help refine response procedures.
• Are plans aligned to industry regulations?
  Look for BCM software that has compliance support features aligned to BCI good practice
• Can you retain audit-ready records of actions and updates?
  Automatic logging of all plan changes, exercises, and responses is essential in your planning software, for both internal management and regulatory audits.

What to look for in BCM planning software:

Ensure your solution includes:

• Real-time visibility across all retail operations.
• Visual dependency mapping (systems, suppliers, sites).
• Mobile-friendly access for incident response.
• Integrated communication and response workflows.
• Scheduled plan reviews and automated testing.
• Dashboards for both central teams and local managers.
• Ability to send mass communications out in an emergency

Why Shadow-Planner?

Shadow-Planner is purpose-built for modern retail resilience.
Unlike traditional BCM tools, Shadow-Planner combines intelligent automation and streamlined continuity management to help your business stay operational through any disruption.

With Shadow-Planner, you get:

• Instant staff notifications and role-based tasking.
• Visual playbooks delivered to frontline teams.
• Seamless integration with your operational and IT systems.
• Proven success with retailers managing dozens to hundreds of locations.

Shadow-Planner puts resilience in motion, not on a shelf.