Effective business continuity planning is critical to ensuring that the essential functions of your business can carry on despite an emergency. Planning to deal with major disruptions is widely regarded as good business sense and could save your business from considerable problems. 

Emergencies can jeopardize your organisation.

For example, a major incident could have the following consequences:

• Damage to your buildings; 
• Loss of IT systems, records, communications and other facilities; 
• Unavailability of staff because of disruption to transport or their unwillingness to travel;
• Loss of staff through illness, death or injury; 
• Adverse psychological effects on staff, including stress and demoralisation; 
• Disruption to other organisations and businesses on which you may depend; or 
• Changes in the business demands placed on your organisation.

You will need resources to maintain critical business functions following a disruptive event. These are likely to include:

• Sufficient people with the necessary expertise and motivation to lead and manage the organisation; 
• Access to key records and IT systems; 
• Reliable means of communication, especially with your staff; 
• The ability to carry on paying staff, to ensure their safety and to provide them with welfare and accommodation; 
• The ability to procure goods and services; 
• The ability to respond to demands from the media.

There are five steps that you can follow to develop a business continuity plan:

1. Analyze your business; you need to understand your business and the way it works, including which functions are essential and where vulnerabilities lie.
2. Assess the risks; you need to understand what emergencies might affect your business and what impact they would have. By focusing on impacts, you will make sure your plan allows you to deal effectively with an incident. 
3. Develop your strategy; you will need to agree what degree of risk is acceptable. You can then decide which risks can be reduced and which risks should be managed using business continuity planning.
4. Develop your plan; you will need to be clear about roles and responsibilities. The plan should be easy to understand.
5. Try out your plan; rehearsals are a good way to train staff and lessons from exercises can be used to refine your plan.

Forward planning is essential - it's never too early to start but if you don't do it now it could be too late!

Further information on Business Continuity can be found on the Government's Resilience website by clicking on the link listed on this page.

For up to date information on the subject of a Flu Pandemic please click on the link on this page.