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The summer floods of 2007 were a reminder that a business must have a plan for dealing with calamities. 

Hundreds of businesses were affected and had to go through the same process of cleaning up, counting their losses and finding alternative accommodation as thousands of residents.

Wide array of disasters 

Not all disasters, however, are as dramatic as the lakes created by rivers bursting their banks and inundated drains.

Shortly after the floods, employers had to cope with postal and tube strikes that kept staff from their workplaces and prevented communication or deliveries.

In recent years Britain has witnessed a wide array of disasters, from city centre bombs to the refinery fire at Buncefield in Hertfordshire and foot-and-mouth restrictions on movement.

Companies have been struck by computer viruses or hacking which compromise their data and threaten their reputations. It has never been so important for business to have a Plan B. 

Disaster recovery, however, is not something to be started after the disaster has happened.

A business continuity plan ensures that if a disaster ever occurs, the recovery can commence immediately and that there is the minimum delay before the company can declare business as usual.

Need for a disaster recovery plan 

Although many companies think of data backup when they consider business continuity, this is only one aspect of overcoming disaster.

Replacing stocks, providing premises and relocating staff are equally important.   When the first bomb exploded at London's Aldgate underground station in July 2005, the area was sealed off and evacuated.

The offices of the London Clearing House (LCH), the organisation that processes all share deals for the London Stock Exchange and the Paris-based Euronext, were not damaged but staff had to leave.

It was five days before surveyors and police declared the premises safe to re-open and share dealing was going on at record volumes in the aftermath of that bomb and the others that followed. 

London Clearing House had copies of its data off-site, but that alone was no use unless it had a place where staff could go to access the information.

New York's 9/11 attack has taught the City of the need for a disaster recovery plan but LCH had been maintaining a fully-equipped alternative business centre for five years for an event that it hoped would never happen.   

The alternative site is close enough to reach quickly but far enough to be unlikely to be closed by the same circumstances.

Some 55 of the 350 staff moved there immediately and had systems up and running within 100 minutes of the bomb exploding.

Major losses of computerised records 

Because even a disaster on the scale of 9/11 does not close a whole city, however, it is unlikely that all companies with disaster sites will need them simultaneously.

If a company uses a bureau to provide space rather than have its own dedicated alternative building, extra workstations and terminals can quickly be brought into use.

London Clearing House eventually moved 90 of its staff to the recovery site and not only provided a full service, but also went ahead with a planned product launch. 

Business consultant Jim Hoffer estimates only 6 per cent of businesses struck by major losses of computerised records survive into the long-term. Some 43 per cent never re-open, he claims, and 51 per cent close within two years.

The problem is not always lack of backup but the inability to get the company back up and running. Recovering the IT is of no benefit until the business itself recovers.

It is important therefore to assess the impact and risk. Some companies can suffer a closure of several days without great loss; some like London Clearing House need to be in operation again within minutes.

Business impact analysis 

The shops in Sheffield's Meadowhall retail centre that were flooded during 2007 were losing sales for every day they remained closed: replacing stock can be easy for a large chain but finding suitable new premises can be difficult.

Some companies can make up production through overtime and still meet delivery deadlines.