Business Continuity Promotion
What would happen if your business or organisation was involved in an emergency or major disaster? In these uncertain times, it makes sense to plan and prepare your business for the unexpected.
What is Business Continuity?
Business Continuity is about having plans in place to make sure your business/organisation is able to operate in the event of an emergency.
Having a tried and tested plan in place will ensure your business/organisation suffers the least possible disruption - ultimately enabling it to continue operating.
Reasons to have a plan
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80% of businesses affected by a major incident close within 18 months;
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90% of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to shut within 2 years;
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58% of UK organisations were disrupted by September 11th. One in eight was seriously affected.
Without effective business continuity planning a natural or man made disaster could result in:
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Complete failure of your business;
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Loss of Income;
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Loss of Reputation and/or loss of customers;
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Financial Legal and Regulatory Penalties;
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Human Resource Issues;
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Am impact on insurance premiums.
You may already have a plan but:
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are your staff aware of it?
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When did you review it?
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Have you ever tested it?
Developing a Plan
The following guidelines might help you to develop a plan:
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Analyse Your Business – make a list of the critical services in priority order and consider where you business may be vulnerable e.g. suppliers, partners, buildings, people, systems and processes, timescales, power;
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Assess the Risks – ask yourself two questions – how likely is it to happen and what effect will it have on your business;
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Prepare a Plan – Prepare a simple generic plan to enable you to continue each of your critical services, which also details specific actions for different types of risk and different services;
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Test your Plan – Involve your employees in the planning process and make sure that you discuss your plan with all employees when complete ensuring that any training needs are addressed. Carry Out an exercise to test your plan. Ensure that you review your plan on a regular basis.
The Council role in Business Continuity
Business Continuity is seen as a way of improving resilience within the Community. As part of seven new responsibilities under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 the Council is required to promote Business Continuity to Businesses and the Voluntary Sector.
The Council can assist by giving general advise and can assist by giving details of useful websites and further reading. We cannot prepare your plans for you – as only you know your business and your critical processes.