Business Continuity Planning - Why you need it

Disruptions can and do affect all organisations - they have no boundaries and no-one is immune to their effects.

Any organisation, whether it is a public entity, private business, voluntary agency or charity, can review its activities, take a structured and logical view of the threats facing it and work out how to respond if these threats materialise.

It makes sense to take steps and plan to protect your key assets in advance. Do that, and you will be much more likely to recover and return to "business as usual". Even a short disruption to normal business can affect customer relationships and your reputation, sometimes beyond repair.

How can you avoid that? A good Business Continuity Plan will help you recover from an incident as quickly and painlessly as possible. But poor planning often threatens the survival of a business following a disruption. 1 in 5 organisations suffers a major disruption every year. Yours could be next.

Did you know?

• 80% of businesses affected by a major incident either never re-open or close within 18 months;
• 90% of businesses that suffer a significant loss of data go out of business within two years;
• Only 49% of organisations have Business Continuity Plans in place. Of these only 37% of actually rehearse or test their plan;
• 94% of organisations who have invoked their Business Continuity Plans agreed that they had significantly reduced the impact of the disruption;
• Many organisations do not recognise the reliance on external suppliers and contractors and do not involve them in Business Continuity Planning.

This information was supplied by the Chartered Management Institute Business Continuity Survey 2006.