Business Continuity
Business continuity plans
Could your business make it through a disruption or a crisis?
Incidents such as severe weather, staff absence, failure of a key supplier, fires, floods, malicious damage and many other potential incidents can cause a business significant problems and prevent it from carrying out its usual operations.
Effective business continuity planning helps to prevent operational interruptions to your organisation. It can enable you to recover and quickly return to a state of 'business as usual'. Nearly one in five businesses suffer a major disruption every year. A Business Continuity Plan helps to make sure that:
- products and services are delivered
- brands and reputations are protected
- interests of stakeholders are protected
How to write a plan
A Business Continuity Plan doesn't have to be a difficult or an expensive task. You can write one yourself just by following the steps below:
- Risk assessment - start by looking at the Thames Valley Community Risk register and consider any local risks associated with your geographic location
- Impact analysis - conduct an impact analysis to highlight the key areas that you need to focus on
- Minimise any impacts - consider risk mitigation using the 4 Ts below:
- Terminate - can you stop the business activity?
- Treat - can you reduce the risk?
- Transfer - can you insure against the risk, or outsource the aspect of the business?
- Tolerate - continue with the business activity and prepare a plan to minimise any impact to it
Once you have your plan, don't forget to train your staff (your plan is only as good as those staff that have been trained to use it) by testing your plan.
Additional resources
You can find out more about how to develop and exercise a business continuity plan on the GOV.UK website, or download their 
Business Continuity Management Toolkit [569KB] .
The Business Continuity Institute also offers further training and qualifications in business continuity management.
You can contact the Emergency Planning Service who can provide help and advice if you're thinking of formulating a Business Continuity plan.
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