Could your business safely handle a major crisis to its operations with a loss of staff, premises, technology, computers, telephones, suppliers, or customers?
Did you know that:
- 80% of businesses affected by a major incident close within a month
- 70% of companies suffering a computer failure are out of business within 18 months
- 90% of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to shut within two year
Which is why the council is keen to promote Business Continuity Management (BCM) to commercial and voluntary organisations in Fylde.
What is Business Continuity Management?
The process of preventing, surviving and recovering from a crisis.
BCM can identify your essential business activities and resources. It ensures you develop documented plans on how to maintain business as usual in the event of a civil emergency or interruption such as fuel crisis, pandemics, the loss of your workplace, theft and vandalism, communications failure, industrial action, power, or water failures etc.
BCM is scalable and applies equally to individual traders or large organisations.
Why is Business Continuity Management important?
No business is immune from the effects of disruption. Poor forward planning often threatens the survival of unprepared businesses when a major emergency or serious disruption occurs.
Statistics show that one in five organisations suffer a major disruption every year. Incidents can quickly affect your key assets, including sites, staff, suppliers and partners, specialist equipment, technology and communications, data and information.
If your business has any of these assets and cannot function or recover quickly without them following a business interruption, you may want to seriously consider Business Continuity Management.
Implementing BCM can help to:
- Safeguard your reputation and competitive edge
- Preserve customer loyalty and trust
- Protect financial income and key business activities
- Enhance business recovery following serious disruption events
- Support insurance claims
Getting started
To assist with business continuity management planning, a template has been developed by the council to help cover the main areas. This can be downloaded below.
Organisations are advised to consider seeking professional assistance in preparing a plan and not to rely on this document alone.
