DRP International

Over the past few years’ threats to organizations of all types and sizes have increased greatly.  From terrorism to viruses, natural disasters to sabotage, firms large and small are now starting to seriously start to plan and put in place contingency plans to ensure that their businesses can re-establish operations quickly and efficiently should a facility incur a disaster of any type.

While bombs, fires and floods capture the headlines, almost 90% of all crises are nowhere near as dramatic.  It is the quiet catastrophes that have the potential to damage your organizations most valuable assets; its brand and reputation.

Research has suggested that on average 30% of all organizations will experience some form of unplanned event once every five years.  Whilst it is unlikely to be as catastrophic as 9/11, there is still the need to think about how businesses would cope with the more mundane events, such as power cuts or transport problems.

 

The fact that organizations are now so dependent on their IT systems has meant that during the last 20 years the IT department has led the way in planning how to recover from an unplanned event.  But restoring data and system access is not enough when there is nowhere for your employees to answer the phones or suppliers cannot deliver critical components.

Incidents as simple as an extended power loss, telecommunications failure or the loss of building heating may cause critical business functions to be disabled making it difficult or even impossible to carry out normal day-to-day business activities.   At worst, this could see you loosing important customers and even going out of business altogether.

And so in short we believe it now concerns every department of every organization and it is no longer just an IT issue.

  • Do nothing
  • Taking out insurance
  • Preparing a Business Continuity Plan

Whilst the first of these is the easiest and most common option it is not recommended for obvious reasons.  The second can appear attractive, but will not cover you against loss of reputation or loss of customers.  So in the long run preparing and testing a Business Continuity Plan (BCM) makes good economic sense.

Putting in place a BCM plan will help you to:

  • Avoid financial loss
  • Meet legal requirements
  • Avoid loss of market share
  • Protect the safety of assets including employees
  • Mitigate negative publicity

The Importance of Early Assessment

Make an early assessment of the likely costs involved in creating and maintaining your plan and budget for it.   It does not need to be expensive and many insurers will look to reduce insurance premiums if you have a proven Business Continuity Plan.

With good planning you and your organization can take steps to minimize the potential impact of a disaster and ideally prevent it from happening in the first place.

DRP International will help you to identify the potential risks, help you to make preparations for such emergencies as well as to help you test how your business is likely to cope in a disaster situation.