Business Continuity

How would your business cope following a disaster?

When the term disaster is used it is associated with recent, highly publicised, events such as the London terror attacks and the Buncefield oil terminal explosion but the fact of the matter is that the disaster that affects a business's operations is usually more mundane such as theft or outtage of IT equipment, fire, flood and utility failures. The London Chamber of Commerce gathered the following statistics:

• 90 per cent of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to close within two years of the disaster.
• 80 per cent of businesses without a well-structured recovery plan are forced to close within 12 months of a flood or fire.
• 43 per cent of companies experiencing disasters never recover.
• 50 per cent of companies experiencing a prolonged computer outage will be forced to shut within five years

The statistics above should lead you to thinking about your business and how it would survive any such catastrophic event.

Even in the current economic cycle, investment in business continuity needs to be maintained as a disaster that could threaten your company's survival can strike at anytime.