Prepare your business for emergencies
Emergencies can affect any business at any time. Severe weather, flooding, cyber incidents, power outages, fire, loss of premises and supply chain disruption can all have a significant impact on business operations. Planning ahead can help your organisation continue to operate during an incident and recover more quickly afterwards.
Businesses that prepare for disruption are better placed to protect their staff, customers, services, reputation and income. A simple Business Continuity Plan can help identify your critical functions and set out how you will respond when things do not go as expected.
Why Business Continuity matters
An emergency may affect:
- Your premises or access to them
- Staff availability
- IT systems and communications
- Utilities such as electricity, water or gas
- Suppliers and contractors
- Customers and service users
- Transportation and fuel supplies
Even a relatively short disruption can result in financial loss, reputational damage and reduced customer confidence. Planning in advance can minimise these impacts and support a faster recovery.
Develop a Business Continuity plan
A Business Continuity Plan sets out how your organisation will:
- Continue delivering critical services during an emergency
- Communicate with staff, customers and suppliers
- Protect important information and business assets
- Manage temporary changes to operations
- Recover and return to some level of normal activities as quickly as possible
Keep your plan proportionate to the size and complexity of your business. Focus on the activities and resources your organisation cannot operate without.
Consider the following:
Further guidance
Ready Scotland provides practical advice and resources to help businesses prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.
Prepare your business for emergencies
Ready Scotland also provides a free Business Emergency Resilience Plan and practical guidance for small and medium-sized organisations.
Business Gateway
Business Gateway provides additional guidance on business continuity planning and organisational resilience.
