Business Continuity Management (BCM) is a management process that helps manage the risks to the smooth running of a business or organisation or the delivery of a service, ensuring it can continue to operate to the extent required in the event of a disruption.
Local councils now have a statutory responsibility to provide advice and assistance in relation to business continuity management in the event of emergencies, to commercial businesses and voluntary organisations in their communities.
Falkirk Council’s Emergency Planning team can offer advice and support but cannot prepare your plans for you. You know your business and its critical processes the best. Instead, we offer free-of-charge advice and we can assist by giving details of useful websites and further reading. There may be a charge for more specific advice and assistance.
Falkirk Council has prepared some useful tools and information to help you gain an understanding of business continuity. This includes a general information leaflet on Business Continuity|, a promotional leaflet called Are You Prepared?|, a 5 Minute Assessment chart| and a BCM Programme Management diagram|. All of these can be downloaded from this page to help you get started.
We are currently considering how best to develop engagement with the local commercial and voluntary sectors. Further information on our proposals will appear here shortly.
Why be concerned about business continuity?
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80% of businesses affected by a major incident close within a month.
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90% of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to shut within 2 years.
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58% of UK organisations were disrupted by September 11th. Of those, 12% were seriously affected.
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Nearly 1 in 5 businesses suffer a major disruption every year.
Without effective business continuity planning, a natural or man-made disaster could result in any one of the following:
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a complete failure of your business;
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loss of income;
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loss of reputation and or loss of customer;
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financial, legal and Regulatory penalties;
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human resource issues;
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an impact on insurance payments.
You may already have an effective plan, but are your staff trained in implementing it? When was the plan last reviewed and updated? When was it last tested?
If you can’t answer these questions confidently you need to give your attention to business continuity.
Other sources of information
The Government has business continuity advice at the Preparing for Emergencies|, Security Advice| and UK Resilience| websites.
The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) is a professional body for those involved in business continuity. The mission statement of the BCI is to promote the art and science of business continuity and management. The wider role of the BCI is to promote the highest standards of professional competence and commercial ethics in the provision and maintenance of business continuity planning and services.
Continuity Forum| offers advice from the leading resource for information and help for Business Continuity Management (BCM).