Business Continuity
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,
probably due to the influence of global warming, the risk of a
flood or other severe weather event is higher than that of a
fire.
Apart from terrorist activities and flooding, other unexpected
events include:
Fire
- Accidents/burglary/vandalism
- Natural disaster (e.g. extreme weather)
- Interruption to power supplies
- Shortage of essential resources or raw materials
- Infectious disease outbreaks
From 15th May 2006 the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a
responsibility on the City Council to give advice and assistance to
businesses and voluntary organisations in relation to Business
Continuity Management or BCM.
BCM is the planning an organisation can do to assess the risks,
identify its vulnerable areas and key functions, and to plan its
response to an 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.
Please see the links on the right for a variety of websites and
publications that give useful advise on business continuity.
Links
The following links contain further information on BCM:
www.thebci.org/ - provides a
certification scheme for business continuity professionals, and
publishes a list of consultants.
www.business-continuity.com
- Business Continuity Information Centre.
www.londonprepared.gov.uk
- London website providing generic advice on BC.
www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/20040036.htm
- text of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
Contact Details
If you are responsible for a business or voluntary organisation
based in the Vale of Glamorgan and would like to discuss these
matters please contact
Emergencyplanning@ValeofGlamorgan.gov.uk