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I checked this once at a company of which I was a director. My CEO and I told all key managers that we wanted them in early one morning for a meeting. On the day in question we called them and asked them to report to a hotel instead of the office. This, of course, created stress. That was our aim. When they got there we advised them that the office had burned down overnight.

Now admittedly it didn’t take long for them to realise that we were only kidding. Some of them were key holders who might have been called in such circumstance. But once relief had sunk in that the office was still there, that they weren't being sacked or the business wasn’t being sold we broke them up into small groups and gave them tasks to perform.

Some were quite straightforward. How fast could we call all staff to ensure everyone could be advised of the situation?

And who had a laptop with a copy of the whole firm’s email address book on it so that all clients could be told immediately without having recourse to the server? Could we mail at all without the server?

Was the IT backup off site? Were we sure? Did it work? Could it be reinstated? On what? One group had the job of working this out. We had no server of our own now.

Were we sure that no immediate liability risk had arisen from the fire? Had anything noxious been let off? Was anything confidential now floating around in the debris? Were we sure? Another group had the job of working out the immediate security issues.

How could we tell the insurers? Could a risk assessor be got on site as quickly as possible? Who would liaise? How could information be prepared, quickly?

But, most important, how were we going to carry on? What systems had we got that worked? How quickly could we get our phone lines back in operation? Did we know where there was temporary office accommodation available so that we could at the very least get people back working as a team to keep the world informed of what was happening?

Rather importantly, and rather quickly thought up as a key question, was did we know where our software licences were? We had a backup, but could we recreate the network on which to run it?

What physical things had we lost that suddenly seemed terribly important? It was amazing how many people had paper note books and diaries in which they kept critical data to which they no longer had access - showing how important non-IT backup was.

Part of our business involved the supply of technical services. We could no longer supply this service, but it was key to meeting client demand. Where could that be undertaken? If it was possible to undertake it elsewhere, what would it cost? How would lead times be altered? How would work schedules change as a result?

The list went on, and on as the exercise developed.

The fact was we’d not covered half the points we thought up. And having done so we then created a disaster plan. Not immediately, but over time. This was given to finance to co-ordinate because rightly or wrongly it was associated with risk management and they reckoned that was our job.

Well if it is I recommend the exercise. We learned a lot. Our insurers were impressed too. And whilst we never put it into effect, knowing we’d thought this through was some comfort. In fact, I even reckon it increased the worth of the company because any investor would know we wouldn’t blow it all with one disastrous fire. You could in that sense say this was directly related to shareholder value. How often can you say that?