Business continuity

As a business, your day-to-day working practices are vulnerable to the effects of emergencies that occur around you but could also be affected by internal disruption such as staff illness, your building becoming inaccessible, or suppliers failing to deliver on their contractual arrangements to you.

80% of organisations without a business continuity plan or contingency arrangements close within 18 months of an event affecting them.

Your organisation or company does not have to be one of these. Business continuity is simply a process of identifying and addressing the risks you face and putting into place a simple process and plan for responding to either an internal or external disruption. Business continuity is about the self-survival of your organisation.

Business continuity is a step-by-step process:

1. Understand your business: what are its strengths and weaknesses, and what risks does it face?
2. Develop business continuity strategies: how will you respond to a disruption?
3. Develop a business continuity response: create a simple response plan or process and identify simple resources you may need to respond
4. Develop a business continuity culture: show your staff the need for business continuity and how your organisation can respond constructively; get them on board with the idea
5. Train, exercise, maintain and audit the plan and processes you create to respond to the disruption

For more detailed information, please visit: https://cswprepared.org.uk/hazard-advice/business-continuity/