Business continuity management

Whether you are a market trader, voluntary organisation or a global institution, continuing day-to-day in the event of disruption could be vital to your organisation's success.

Business continuity management is about identifying what aspects of your organisation's activities and resources are essential and planning how your business would continue in the event of an emergency to ensure that your business will survive.

How would an emergency affect your business?

Business considerations:

• how long could you cope if there was a power cut or the phones went dead?
• how long would it be before a small inconvenience becomes a major problem?
• what if an incident prevented a delivery to a key customer? Would they give you another chance or would they go elsewhere?
• how would a major incident affect your staff or their morale? Would they stand by you or look to move on? What impact would their departure have on your business?
• how would serious damage to your premises affect your business? 
• how easy would it be to contact your regular customers to let them know the situation?
• how long would you be able to fulfil your orders and how would this affect your reputation?

The following statistics show that most businesses are poorly prepared for emergency situations:

• 90% of businesses that lose their data in an emergency close within two years
• 80% of businesses suffering a major incident close within 18 months if they have no effective business continuity plan
• 58% of UK organisations were disrupted by events on September 11th 2001. One in eight was seriously affected.

The benefits

Considering and planning business continuity early on will help a business to return to a "business as usual" state as quickly as possible.

It is essential to withstand serious incidents such as flooding and fire and quickly re-open as normal. Even a relatively short interruption to normal activity can damage customer relationships and business reputation beyond repair.

Business continuity may involve making contingency plans for the sudden loss/unavailability of the following:

• work sites
• staff and skills
• suppliers and partners
• specialist equipment
• technology and communications
• data and information.

Redirecting mail and phone calls

If your postal supplier cannot deliver post to your premises, the mail will be returned to sender. To avoid this, you can set up a redirection of your mail. The service can take up to five days to activate and can continue for up to two years.

To find out more, phone 0845 7740 740 or learn more online via the Royal Mail website.

If you need to direct your land line incoming phone calls to another line, then contact 0800 800 152 (free phone) British Telecom Business Dial to activate this procedure. 

Contact us

You can contact us about business continuity:

Tel: 0207 527 2000 
Email: emergencyplanning@islington.gov.uk