Many businesses never recover from major incidents, but with a little planning this need not be the case.

Business continuity or disaster recovery is concerned with getting organisations up and running quickly following a disruption incident, such as a fire or theft. Many commercial products and solutions on the market tend to be information technology led, but a complete business continuity solution will address:

• arrangements for employees if they can’t attend their normal place of work;
• contingency plans if insufficient employees report for work (e.g. a flu pandemic);
• financial response if a major supplier fails to pay their invoices;
• serious supply chain disruption; and
• security of business data.

Having produced disaster recovery plans for organisations, I’ve developed a template approach to disaster recovery planning. This means that if you already have an IT led solution, you can just add some additional solutions to ensure all other disaster scenarios are covered. Once in place your organisation will be better placed to:

• respond effectively to evolving incidents;
• get the business operating again quickly; and
• address post-incident issues, such as insurance claims and public relations.