UK businesses are increasingly prepared for disruption or disaster according to BSI British Standards’ annual Business Barometer.

The research found that 81 per cent of FTSE companies would expect to last up to one week before feeling serious detrimental effects following disruption or disaster. Almost two thirds (63 per cent) are very well prepared for serious IT failure.

Half of businesses surveyed are fully prepared for a forced office relocation, while almost half (47 per cent) are fully prepared for comprehensive supply chain failure.

Business Continuity Management

BSI’s annual survey of FTSE 250 companies shows that 71 per cent recognise the importance of Business Continuity Management (BCM) in staying competitive and winning new business in the future. This is a 10 per cent increase on 2006’s Business Barometer.

Mike Low, director of BSI British Standards, said, “The scale of risk and opportunity in the FTSE 250 are enormous and these organisations are recognising that BCM has to be at the heart of their operations. It’s also crucial for smaller organisations and those in other sectors to look seriously at how they would cope in the event of a disaster.”

This year’s Business Barometer shows improvement in the preparedness of organisations for serious failure of their infrastructure. Low said that this is really positive but that there is still room for improvement.

Events of the last year have prompted many businesses to reconsider their approach to BCM. Some 42 per cent reviewed their approach to BCM following the London and Glasgow terror alerts in June 2007. A further 34 per cent reviewed their approach to BCM following the widespread flooding throughout summer 2007.

Disruption and disaster 

Despite an increase in overall preparedness on last year, the Business Barometer shows that more businesses would be affected by disruption or disaster more quickly than in 2006. In the survey, 58 per cent said that their business would be seriously affected in under a day, compared with 46 per cent in 2006.

Those companies already implementing British or international standards as a matter of course were found to be better prepared, with 56 per cent saying that their business would be very well prepared for failure in the supply chain, compared with 47 per cent overall.

The BSI said that 62 per cent of businesses, compared with 46 per cent in 2006, are required by customers to show that they have effective business continuity measure in place while 72 per cent now ask all or some of their own suppliers to do the same.

Continual improvement 

BSI’s research shows that businesses are increasingly recognising the value of BCM. More companies are ‘very well prepared’ for failure in the supply chain (47 per cent in 2007, up from 45 per cent in 2006 and 18 per cent in 2005), catastrophic IT failure (63 per cent in 2007, up from 51 per cent in 2006 and 27 per cent in 2005) and forced business relocation (50 per cent in 2007, compared to 41 per cent in 2006 and 15 per cent in 2005).

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