It will never happen to me. . . . until it does! A guide to business continuity

Could your business survive an electricity supply failure, an IT network outage, flooding damage, telephone outage for a day or longer, key equipment or documents destroyed in a fire or by flooding? What would the impact be if you weren’t able to access to the office building for days, weeks or even months?

What would happen to your business if a malware cyber-attack disrupted your operations, or a ransomware attack disabled your systems?

Have you considered the impact of climate change on your business? Increased flooding, more extreme weather events that could disrupt your business and damage assets are already happening, but what about the knock-on impacts of this on your supply chain and distribution channels or staff health levels, would disruption to water supply or a restricted power grid impact you? Are you prepared for future regulatory changes that could be imposed on businesses?

It’s a daunting prospect but thankfully there is a wealth of support to help you prepare for the worst.

If you are just starting to prepare and protect your business for a worse-case scenario and don’t know where to start, you’ll find everything you need to know to achieve rapid results and quick wins in this helpful guide

You can develop and implement your business continuity strategy and learn how to embed it into your business with this Business Continuity Management Toolkit. If you want a check list to help you run through what you will need to do for your business, the Local Resilience Forum has produced this booklet for you.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue has all the information you will need to help protect your business from the risks of fire. Preparing for a flood and creating a flood plan will help your business know what to do before, during and after a flood

For small to medium sized businesses, The Cyber Action Toolkit has clear, bite-sized actions to help protect your business's money and reputation from cyber criminals. For medium or large businesses that have a dedicated person to manage cyber security, The National Cyber Security Centre has a 10-step plan to help protect your business.