Business continuity management

Widespread staff sickness, loss of power, building damage or even a fuel shortage - what would you do to keep your business functioning in the event of a crisis?

Your customers will not wait for long while you try to recover from an emergency, so it’s vital that plans are in place to enable your response to any incident to be quick, efficient and effective.

To do this you need to identify the key parts of your business and plan to ensure you have the resources you need to keep them going. Resources could mean staff, suppliers, premises, equipment or data, and your plan may contain contact lists of key staff, suppliers and customers. It might also have details of an alternative location you could work from and roles and responsibilities for who will do what in a crisis.

Business continuity management will help you to identify risks and cope with them if they do occur. It should identify the potential impacts that threaten an organisation, provide a framework for building resilience and the capability for an effective response and recovery.

Further advice to businesses and information on business continuity is available from the LRF website (external link) or The Business Continuity Institute (external link)