Business Continuity Planning is not just about managing a complete disaster it is also about planning for the more annoying events which have a temporary effect on the business and yet still cause disruption. With the appropriate level of planning these events can be managed to significantly reduce the loss to the business. In this article we will look at both elements these being;-
1) Complete disaster. Low risk, high impact.
2) Minor disruption. High risk, difficult to evaluate the impact
1) Complete disaster
FACT: 90% of businesses that lose their data in a disaster go out of business within two years, and almost 50% never reopen their doors.
Source: University of Texas Centre for Research on Information
Irretrievable data loss can spell the death of a business. Customer records, financial systems, VAT and tax returns, business documents and email archives – they are all vital to maintain business continuity. Yet more than half of businesses fail to maintain an adequate back-up system to keep their data fully protected.
Protect your most valuable asset
Everyone thinks data loss is someone else’s problem, but sooner or later it’s likely to happen to your business. On what scale it’s impossible to predict, but it’s always important to anticipate the worst case scenario.
Putting in place a comprehensive business continuity plan will enable your business to recover from any disaster quickly, inexpensively and with a minimum of downtime. We’ll help you design and implement the most suitable and cost effective solution to maintain continuity in the following critical areas:
· People, workforce, skills and knowledge
· Premises
· Supporting technologies
· Information
· Equipment and supplies
· Stakeholders, partners and contractors
2) Minor disruption
Minor disruption can be caused by many events such as Weather, power outages, accidents to employees or even basic hardware failure. The effects on the business can range from a nonevent to a significant issues as the problem escalates out of control.
· Take the Snowfall in 2010
Source weather expert
“Disruption caused by the heavy snowfall could cost UK businesses about £1bn, South-east England had the worst snow it has seen for 18 years.”
Source Weather Expert
“The Winter forecast for London, UK for the 2010 - 2011 Winter expect below avg. temperatures and above average snow. The reason this is going to happen is that the La Nina weather phenomenon is now building in the Eastern Pacific and should continue until next spring. For Canada this always brings more weather systems out of the North West resulting in colder temps & more snowfall. Then once the Low pressure area leaves Canada it picks up some extra energy from the Atlantic Ocean and by the time the Low hits the UK is colder than normal and drops more snow than normal."
· Floods too have their effect, even if your business is not in a flood risk area, floods may prevent employees actually getting to work.
· Reported by The Guardian on 28th of May 2008,
"Half a million people were hit by unscheduled power cuts on Tuesday after seven power stations, including Sizewell B in Suffolk, unexpectedly stopped working within hours of each other."
A simple power outage, more common in some parts of the UK than others, does have potential knock on effects which will cause damage to computer equipment potentially leading to some significant downtime of the whole business.
· Employees who have suffered an accident some kind and are willing and able to continue working from home why shouldn’t they?
These events and others can all be easily planned for, and not necessarily at a huge expense. With technology even this is easy to manage and plan for so that the business still functions effectively. Call us or drop us a line to find out how.
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