2010 – A Year of Business Continuity
Friday, December 24th 2010
2010 – A year of Business Continuity
By Tony Gimple
It’s been a busy year for the business continuity world with many major crises. Here are some of the major events and statistics of 2010.
January
The Government commissioned a review of England’s transport resilience in the wake of heavy snow.
- 58% of small business decision makers claimed they suffered as a result of the heavy snow
- The Environment Agency reported the cost of the 2007 summer floods on homeowners and businesses was found to be £2bn
This year the figures look to be even worse.
February
The Federation of Small Businesses published the results of their survey into the effects of the winter weather.
- One in seven employees struggled to get to work
- 40% of businesses suffered a disruption of services and goods
- 29% of businesses saw a loss of growth and demand
- 18% lost access to their premises
- 11% had to close completely!
March
In March the Chartered Management Institute published its regular Business Continuity Management survey. It found that:
- 93% of businesses were affected by the snow
- 79% of managers felt that their continuity plan reduced the impact of the disruption
April
April was a month of big worldwide news. The explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig caused a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano grounded air traffic and there was a financial meltdown in Greece.
May
May saw the British general election and the formation of the first coalition government since World War Two. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats set out a coalition agreement which contained, amongst other things, an aspiration to spend 25% of the procurement budget with SMEs. Also in May the BCI published its report into the link between continuity management and business insurance, finding that a business continuity management system could help insurers and businesses in a number of profitable ways.
June
Marsh published their report into BCM in the EMEA. Their main finding was that business continuity is becoming an integrated part of organisations’ overall approaches to risk and risk management. Some notable statistics were:
- 83% of respondents felt that senior managers understood and provided support for business continuity
- 67% felt that their continuity arrangements covered supply chain risk
- Between 2008 and 2010 13% of businesses surveyed had suffered a major loss due to supply chain failure
July
Data security began to come under closer scrutiny in July with the first batch of documents released by whistle blowing website WikiLeaks. The cost to businesses of the Buncefield oil depot explosion was revealed to be nearly £10m and a new National Flood Emergency Framework for England was published by DEFRA.
August
In August Crisis Survivor welcomed two new faces to the board of Directors. Michael Walker became our Chairman and Richard Vardy became a director. Both appointments have bought a wealth of experience to the company. We also announced our partnership with Cowens Survival Capability.
September
In September the Crisis Survivor team grew again with the appointment of Fiona Mostyn as Marketing Manager. Fiona has brought a great deal of experience to the company having previously worked on communications and marketing initiatives across a range of sectors from finance to software.
October
October saw the coalition government announcing its Strategic Defence and Security Review which anticipated cyber attack as being the most dangerous threat facing the UK and its economy today.
November
In November the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, laid out a package of measures to make procurement easier for SMEs, which include a new online portal to go live in March 2011 as well as an online consultation of SMEs experiences with government procurement.
A report by CII found that:
- Whilst 90% of claims practitioners thought that a continuity plan could make a difference to insurance claims
- only 45% of brokers thought the same
December
This month we’ve seen the dangers to private businesses of cyber attacks with the websites of Visa, Mastercard and Paypal being targeted by pro-Wikileaks ‘hacktivists’; and, to finish the year where it started, yet more chaos and business interruption caused by heavy snow.
An article in Insurance Times revealed that:
- Weather was the greatest cause of business interruption, followed by loss of IT, utility outage and supply chain failure
- Business continuity is rated “highly” or “very highly” by 79% of senior managers
- 47% of respondents require their suppliers to have a business continuity plan
Crisis Survivor would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous and safe New Year.