Business Continuity Management

Businesses are accustomed to assessing and planning for commercial risks, such as the sudden loss of an important customer or supplier, a bad debt or industrial action. But, increasingly, a wider range of events can also have a major impact on their prosperity, or even survival.

Recent events around the world have shown that terrorist or climatic events can increasingly impinge on businesses, for example 58% of UK businesses report that they were disrupted as a result of September 11th, with one in eight severely affected.

Companies often fail to prepare for events that can have a significant impact on their operations. Fire safety measures may be commonplace, but flood mitigation measures are rare. However, the reality is that the risks of a flood or other severe weather events are higher than that of a fire.

Apart from terrorist activities and flooding, other unexpected events might include:

• Accidents/burglary/vandalism
• Natural disaster (e.g. extreme weather)
• Interruption to power supplies
• Shortage of essential resources or raw materials
• Infectious disease outbreaks

Business Continuity Management (BCM) is about the planning an organisation can do to assess all the risks, identify where it might be vulnerable, and to plan its response to any adverse event. This is important to ensure the impact of an incident is kept to a minimum, and that the business can return to normal operations as quickly as possible.

Organisations that have business continuity arrangements in place are more likely to stay in business after an incident, as they are more prepared and equipped to help themselves. It is an increasing expectation of insurance companies that organisations will have these preparations in place.

Larger businesses may need to access sources of specialist assistance from professional consultants. Further information is available from the Business Continuity Institute link below.

The following links contain further information on BCM:
Business Continuity Institute
Cabinet Office: UK resilience
London Resilience

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