Business continuity
Emergency Planning for your business
Successful businesses are vital to our community and the local
economy. Emergencies can disrupt businesses, affecting profits and
operations. This can have a detrimental effect on employees,
shareholders, customers and communities.
No business can have control over everything that happens.
Nearly one in five organisations suffers a major disruption every
year and the majority (who have not planned for the worst) end up
out of business within 18 months.
Disruptions to businesses of any size, from the corner shop to
multi-national corporation, can be affected by anything from a
fire to a flood, a
power
outage to
a bus coming through your front window.
Customers expect continuity of services, even in the most
challenging of circumstances. They expect you to be fully in
control, and to be seen to be in control - your organisation's
reputation is at risk if you are not.
Business continuity plans will help ensure that the impact of
emergencies on the day-to-day functions of the business is kept to
a minimum, and that disruption to your critical business operations
does not deepen the impact of the emergency on your employees,
shareholders, partners, contractors, stakeholders and
customers.
- what would you do to help your business cope through an
emergency?
- what if you need to close for a day, a week or a month?
- could you relocate? Change your opening hours? Find extra
staff?
The business continuity planning process helps you to:
- identify the potential threats
- identify areas, activities or processes where any failure (e.g.
of equipment suppliers etc) would lead to a major business
interruption
- identify key activities and staff working within those
areas
- plan to reduce the likelihood or reduce the impact of
identified risks/threats
- exercise the plan and train your staff
There is a Business Continuity Management Toolkit available for
download on the
Directgov website which will help the commercial and voluntary
sector implement business continuity management.
And there is more information and guidance available to help you
on the London Prepared
website. .