The flooding in July has shown that companies with proper business continuity plans have done well with little or no interruption in services. Those companies with no business continuity plans in place have fared less well. Some of these have been caught napping and their systems went down with uncertainty about resumption dates and doubts about insurance cover may mean that some companies ceased to trade.

A basic Business Continuity Plan looks at possible threats to the company and what action would be appropriate in these circumstances, moreover the actions are tested before disaster strikes and any corrective actions incorporated.

Plans that are put in place but are untested often fall at the first fence; an example of this is the company that has an uninterruptible power supply in place to deal with mains power loss, but takes no account of an interruption lasting an hour or more when the UPS power is exhausted.

Most of the planning is just common sense, but tell that to those companies facing ruin.

Labels: Business Continuity Planning, ISO27001