Planning for disaster

The next step up, and the foundation of a simple and cheap plan, involves looking at every part of your business, working out what could happen to it and how you’d deal with that eventuality. Then you need to put into place who will deal with it, be it a third party or an internal individual.

If you’re starting to worry that many hours of toil lie ahead, Belfor’s Greg French has some encouraging words: ‘The biggest problems with disaster recovery plans is that they can become too detailed and focus too much on staff. People have a habit of changing jobs and the most generic plans are generally the best – prescriptive plans go out of date in a few months.’

One thing that is essential to include in your plan, in the event of a substantial disaster, is to not stop trying to win new business. Alison Williams, chairman of market researcher FDS Group – another business that fell victim to fire – says that, because of temporarily putting business development on hold, even three years after the blaze the company hasn’t reached the level she'd expected to be at. ‘We had a disaster recovery plan, but it is much more thorough now. Our business continuity insurance is considerably increased, we have broadband from our offices in Kent to our offices in High Wycombe to offer continuous work in case of another disaster and our plan has provisions within it that will mean we shall not put new business development on hold.’

Williams’ current plan includes contact numbers of staff, customers, suppliers, insurance and utilities; details of emergency update lines for staff post-emergency; and detailed instructions and lists of who does what and when (including deputies for each role). ‘Plan for the worst case,’ she stresses, ‘then anything less will be covered.’