UK City and Town Continuity Planning

London Borough of Ealing

An Introduction to Business Continuity Planning

Plan Today To Trade Tomorrow

What is Business Continuity Management?

Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a planning process to help ensure that any organisation can deal with and recover from any unplanned interruption to its operations.

It is about anticipating the type of incidents, such as fire, flooding, flu, supplier failure, power, gas or water supply interruption, strikes, or anything else which could interrupt your business and planning how you will deal with them, if and when they happen. It is simply good business sense to ensure that your business will survive.

Compiling a businesses continuity plan should ensure that any business, no matter how small or large and complex can identify its essential elements and swiftly resume its operations if any unforeseen event occurs.

Business Continuity Planning Are you ready for a major disruption to your business?

How long do you think it would take before you can fully recover your ability to meet the level of service expected by your clients/customers?

How long do you think your clients/customers would be prepared to wait for you to resume ‘business as usual’?

You need to devise a basic plan, the scale of which will be related to the size of your business. A small business which have something quite simple but nevertheless effective compared to a larger business with perhaps more than one site of operation.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to business continuity planning although regardless of size the basic process is the same.

Why is it so important?

Many organisations fail to make proper preparations to manage disruption and leave themselves vulnerable when the unexpected emergency happens.

It is easy to underestimate the widespread effect a small incident can have on the local economy. For example a large scale fire that requires the evacuation of all people within a 200m area for a 24-48 hour period could have knock on effects for local businesses including the delivery and supply of goods and services. Even being out of your business premises for 24 hours could take you several days, weeks, months or even years to recover from.

Anticipating and assessing the risks to your organisation will help you to start to plan to keep operating at a pre-determined level. The alternatives can be stark, without a plan you could suffer loss of revenue, your reputation may suffer, you may lose contracts and customers, face legal penalties or even be forced to stop operating. “Nearly 1 in 5 businesses suffer a major disruption every year. Yours could be next. With no recovery plan, you have less chance of survival�.

Insurance – Is it the answer?

When dealing with a major disruption you need to understand fully what your insurance covers, such as areas as maximum indemnity period, extent of cover, exclusions, limits of liability, business interruption, consequential loss, legal liability to staff and public. This will help you to identify where some of the vulnerabilities to your business are.

Getting a survey of the site and a list of records complete with photos of items particularly invaluable pieces of equipment is a very good idea. This will help when dealing with insurers and loss adjusters. Make sure that one up to date set is always kept safe off site.

The purchase of insurance may provide some financial recompense for some losses, but it will not meet all costs (e.g. uninsured events, brand reputation, stake holder value, market share and human consequences).

Insurance cover on its own is unlikely to fully protect an organisation and should always be used in conjunction with other strategies such as a Business Continuity Plan.

Advice from the Association of British Insurers When an unforeseen event occurs the cost of business interruption is often much larger than the value of the actual property damaged or stolen.

In 2005 business interruption insurance claims cost UK business £267 million. Although insurance can reduce the financial impact of an insurable event following such events, it cannot compensate for the loss of valuable customers and contracts, nor for damage to reputation. Damage to business premises is repairable but the time it takes to get the organisation back on its feet could lead to bigger losses.

The explosion and fire at the Buncefield oil depot in December 2005 had repercussions not only for the plant but also for businesses in the surrounding area. Many local firms were unable to make or receive wholesale deliveries, severely disrupting their business. Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce estimate total damage and business lost to be £550m-£1bn. The Buncefield incident is just one example of how businesses need to understand adjacent risks not under their control.

From fire to flood, theft to terrorist attack, every business needs to ask themselves the question: if the worst happens, how long will it take to get back to trading normally?

A good business continuity plan should focus on the impacts of an event, addressing issues such as loss of access to a site, the availability of alternative temporary premises, the loss of key staff or information and how to fulfil existing contracts and commitments. What is the minimum your business would need to keep operating?

The plan should help your business get back to normal as quickly as possible with minimum disruption to the normal running of the organisation. Continuity planning for a business can be looked at as a type of risk management, where the risk managed is the long-term damage from an event that has already happened. To be fully effective a plan must be carefully prepared and put in place long before a ‘disaster’ actually occurs.

Of course, it is impossible to set out an ‘ideal’ business continuity plan because each plan must be carefully tailored for each organisation.

However, some time spent planning for the major risks can potentially mean the difference between continuing or going out of business.

It is better to identify what can be achieved rather than have no plan in place at all.

Some of the main points to be considered are: 1.

Relocation. If a building is so badly damaged that the organisation can no longer operate from it, a temporary business address will need to be set up elsewhere while repairs are carried out.

2.

Informing staff. Depending on the size of the organisation it may not be possible for one person to phone every member of staff, so managers may need to arrange a ‘cascade list’ setting out who should phone whom. It is vital that this list is kept up-to-date and that all the relevant numbers are held off-site.

3.

Computer systems and information. Back-up copies of important information (both electronic and paper-based) should be stored at a secure, off-site location as a matter of course. If records are destroyed, these back-ups will prove invaluable.

4.

Office equipment. Keeping up-to-date contact lists of suppliers is vital. Managers should carry out an audit of furniture and other equipment (photocopiers, fax machines, telephones, computers etc) that the business would need in both the short and long term.

Of course the best type of business continuity planning is to not let a disaster happen in the first place. Insurers are highly active in this area, and can offer advice on aspects of risk management.

More information on business continuity planning can be found on the ABI website: www.abi.org.uk

Basic Business Continuity Planning – The Five Steps The Business Continuity Institute has developed a five stage process for BCM.

1

Understand the risks your organisation faces. Identify the most critical functions and the people, internal and external, essential to your business objectives.

2

Compile a BCM strategy giving all the resources needed to

3

Develop a BCM response plan, identifying the roles and

4

Embed resilience into your organisation. Top management

5

Ensure plans are robust by training and testing in exercises

resume a predetermined level of business in a given time.

responsibilities of key personnel in a crisis.

must ensure everyone knows the plan and is trained in it.

regularly. Look at the lessons learnt and revise the plan to make sure they are not lost.

This process is a cycle and having gone through it, start again and re-assess your risks. This needs to be done regularly as your organisation and the business environment change.

At a Glance Self Assessment

Check

Do you have prepared a emergency pack?

Does it included the following essential items:

Y/N

A list of all key contacts’ telephone numbers

Y/N

A List of employees with contact details

Y/N

Contact details for clients and suppliers

Y/N

Your Landlords contact details?

Y/N

How to turn off the gas, water and electricity and the suppliers contact details

Y/N

A First aid kit

Y/N

Spare Keys

Y/N

Building site plan/s

Y/N

Business recovery plan/s

Y/N

Have you thought about the following: Would it affect your business if one of your key customers / suppliers went out of business?

Y/N

Do your key suppliers have a business continuity plan and how does it relate to you?

Y/N

Do you have sufficient insurance to pay for disruption to business, cost of repairs, hiring temporary employees, leasing temporary accommodation and equipment?

Y/N

If you lease your building, what responsibility does your landlord have to help you?

Are your IT systems critical to the running of your business? – If yes or (no) do you have:

Y/N

Computer back up tapes/discs

Y/N

Computer information stored or backed up off the premises

Y/N

Do you have a business continuity plan (BCP)?

Y/N

If no: being able to answer yes to all the above questions is the start of your business continuity process.

How can the Council help?

The Civil Contingencies Act requires us to provide generic advice and assistance to local businesses and voluntary organisations on Business Continuity.

To find out more, visit our website at: http://www.ealing.gov.uk/services/business Or for more Business Continuity advice in London visit: www.londonprepared.gov.uk We constantly strive to improve our service, if you have any comments, suggestions or queries please contact us using the contact details below: Norma Dickson Business Continuity Manager Ealing Council Perceval House 14-16 Uxbridge Road Ealing W5 2HL Telephone: 020 8825 5525 Email: Dicksonn@ealing.gov.uk

LEGAL NOTICE None of the editorial or photographs may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publishers. No responsibility can be accepted for any inaccuracies that may occur, correct at time of going to press.

PUBLISHED August 2006 ŠBenham Publishing Ltd 4th Floor, Orleans House, Edmund Street, Liverpool L3 9NG. Tel 0151 236 4141. www.benhampublishing.com