Dealing with disaster
Article Date: Oct 12 2006The next step up, and the foundation of a simple and cheap plan, involves looking at every part of your business, working out what could happen to it and how you’d deal with that eventuality. Then you need to put into place who will deal with it, be it a third party or an internal individual.
One thing that is essential to include in your plan, in the event of a substantial disaster, is to not stop trying to win new business. Alison Williams, chairman of market researcher FDS Group – another business that fell victim to fire – says that, because of temporarily putting business development on hold, even three years after the blaze the company hasn’t reached the level she'd expected to be at.
‘We had a disaster recovery plan, but it is much more thorough now. Our business continuity insurance is considerably increased, we have broadband from our offices in Kent to our offices in High Wycombe to offer continuous work in case of another disaster and our plan has provisions within it that will mean we shall not put new business development on hold.’
Williams’ current plan includes contact numbers of staff, customers, suppliers, insurance and utilities; details of emergency update lines for staff post-emergency; and detailed instructions and lists of who does what and when (including deputies for each role). ‘Plan for the worst case,’ she stresses, ‘then anything less will be covered.’
(A longer version of this article can be seen in BusinessXL)
