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BUSINESS SUPPORTA DISASTER? YOUCAN STILL STAYIN BUSINESSLOUISE SMAIL WONDERS WHETHER YOUR BUSINESS IS WELL PREPARED FOR UNFORESEEN DISRUPTIONIn March 2009 the Chartered Institute ofManagement, in conjunction with the CabinetOffice, produced its 10th annual survey of businesscontinuity management in the UK*. Based onresponses from 1,012 managers, the report revealeda pressing need for UK organisations to guard againstcomplacency in their attitude towards protectingthemselves from the potential disruption resultingfrom possible risks.The results showed that 52% of organisationsacross the UK practise business continuity planningand have a business continuity plan (BCP). This is thehighest level the survey has ever recorded. However,a less positive finding was that only 64% of managersthought that business continuity ranked as ‘important’within their organisation – down from 76% theprevious year.This is a dangerous trend. Survey respondents sawelectronic attack (58%) and human disease (57%) asbeing the two greatest causes for concern. Indeed thecurrent threat of swine flu has made someorganisations look at their arrangements for carryingon – if and when it strikes their workforce – and,fortunately for them, there is now a lot of informationavailable on the subject (see, for instance ‘YourBusiness and Swine Flu’ at www.businesslink.org.uk).However, businesses often concentrate on such typesof disruption – the ones they think they will experience –at the risk of completely failing to anticipate others.They need to be prepared for all sorts of possibleincidents. Yet general disaster-readiness is what businesscontinuity planning is all about.PREPARE FOR EVERYTHINGA BCP is not about planning for specific events:disasters, whether major or minor, rarely happenat the time and in the form you expect. It is aboutlooking at how robust your business is to some formof interruption or other. There are many toolkits andchecklists available, to help you create and reviewyour business continuity – just one example beingthe toolkit available to download from the LondonPrepared website (www.londonprepared.gov.uk/18businesscontinuity). This will take you through the keyelements of a BCP – a good starting place if you haveeither a plan overdue for review, or a set of variousrecovery and continuity strategies that are not yet coordinatedas a business continuity plan.Basically, there are five key steps in creating aneffective BCP:■ understanding your business;■ developing your plan;■ testing and establishing the plan;■ training staff;■ maintaining and reviewing your plan.Following any type of disaster, the media will beinterested in how an organisation is coping with theproblem, through to whether the media perceivethat the problem may have started with yourorganisation. They will demand instant informationand details, and interviews with experts and survivors.By understanding the media’s needs, preparing aproper strategy in association with them and testing itduring exercises, the organisation’s chances of beingaccurately portrayed are greatly increased. As part ofthe plan it is worth considering how the organisationwill deal with the media – either through onedepartment or maybe through an outside agency.* A Decade of Living Dangerously: The BusinessContinuity Management Report 2009, downloadableat www.managers.org.uknovember/december 2010 londonaccountant