It may be an everyday story of country folk, but The Archers can teach us all a good lesson I was driving home this evening (16th January 2012), listening to Radio Four and battling the traffic on the A1. Whilst not being a regular listener to The Archers, I couldn’t help but be interested in…
Make sure everybody knows who is in charge when it all goes pear-shaped It seems that this blog may be read by some quite important people. Yesterday (20/12/2012) in the UK Parliament’s House of Commons, Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough, asked who would be in charge of the country if the Prime Minister were…
I just received a well-timed email from the excellent people at telephone-answering.biz who answer my ‘phone if I’m not around or busy. The salient paragraph reads: When bad weather is predicted remember that by diverting your lines to us before you leave the office, if you are unable to get in then we can still…
People can be your greatest asset, and your biggest weakness. Make sure you protect against loss of key staff It is often said that people are the greatest asset in any successful business. I’d support that view: there aren’t many businesses that could operate without them. Unfortunately, it is also true that the existence of…
How flooding in Thailand can affect a business in the UK A news item on Channel Pro leaves me wondering if Chaos Theory really does apply to Business Continuity Planning. Chaos Theory deals with situations in which a very slight change in the initial conditions can have a dramatic effect on the outcome of a…
Air conditioning plant, and other pieces of electrical equipment, can occasionally cause you hassle I was chatting with a contact the other day and was told of a problem they had recently. The problem itself was trivial, the consequences were not. They work in a building that has been retro-fitted with air conditioning plant. They…
What do you do if you are a small professional practice and your biggest risk is loss of one of your partners? I recently spoke with a partner in just such a situation. The practice is successful, they’ve been around for some time and they have a problem. The partners are very busy, they have…
Failing to protect the data that runs your business could be very costly, make sure you know how costly and take appropriate measures. Most businesses these days are entirely dependent on computer held data; in fact they are no longer able to operate effectively without access to current digital information. It could be customer orders,…
Not having Plan B can be very expensive I was prompted to write this after my good friend Graham responded to yesterday’s Monday Tip – “Always learn from your mistakes” by asking if Lewis Hamilton was one of my Twitter followers. The point was that it seems McClaren had no contingency plan for Qualification 3…
This one’s not specifically a Business Continuity tip, it applies to all areas of business: nay, life. Those of us in the UK will have been aware of the return of the Ash Cloud this last week. Luckily it didn’t take the same form as last year’s and the disruption was on a much lower…
