Risk mitigation is the process of planning for disasters and having a way to lessen negative impacts.
Although the principle of risk mitigation is to prepare a business for all potential risks, a proper risk mitigation plan will weigh the impact of each risk and prioritize planning around that impact. Risk mitigation focuses on the inevitability of some disasters and is used for those situations where a threat cannot be avoided entirely. Rather than planning to avoid a risk, mitigation deals with the aftermath of a disaster and the steps that can be taken prior to the event occurring to reduce adverse and, potentially, long-term effects.
Ideally, an organization would be prepared for all risks and threats and avoid them entirely. However, having a risk mitigation plan can help an organization prepare for the worst, acknowledging that some degree of damage will occur and having systems in place to confront that.