Business continuity

Having analysed your business and assessed the risks involved, you should now know which areas to focus your plan on, for example:

• Customer Care during an emergency
• having remote access to your phone system

You should also know:

• which type of incident would damage your business the most
• how to minimise the damage that it could cause

Planning your business continuity response

You should know whether you need to be fully operational to survive, or whether it would be enough to operate at 50%. Do you know your break-even point? If not, it's very important to work it out.

You should consider whether it would be better for you to:

• close your business down for a period of time and re-open fully when the incident is over, or
• run your business throughout the incident so you don’t lose staff

Are you committed to reducing risks or do you prefer to take risks and have a comeback plan later?

When you've established what's important to the survival of your business and what the risks are, you can write your plan. Be sure to use non-technical language, making it accessible and easily understood by everyone in your business.

Also see

• People and communities
• Information for businesses
• Emergency contacts
• What to do after a flood
• North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum (NYLRF)
• York Flood Alleviation Scheme (FAS)
• The Institute of Risk Management
• The Emergency Planning Society