88% OF LOCAL SURREY BUSINESSES DO NOT HAVE AN UP TO DATE BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN IN THE EVENT OF A DISASTER

RAMSAC a leading IT solutions provider today announced compounding statistics to confirm that local Surrey SMEs are overlooking the importance of business continuity planning. 60% of attendees at the last South East Professional Services Forum which focused on business continuity planning had no plan in place and a further 28% of attendees had either a partial or out of date plan. This is a worrying statistic as www.londonprepared.gov.uk state that 80% of businesses affected by a major incident close within two years and 90% of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to close within 18 months.

RAMSAC’s latest forum was designed specifically to educate SMEs on the need to plan for an event that has the potential to seriously disrupt day to day operations, which could include anything from a power cut to a fire or flood on the premises. “Planning for these events is about much more than backing up your data every night”, comments Robert May, Managing Director of RAMSAC “its about ensuring that you are able to carry on business as usual in the event of a disaster.”

The forum not only informed businesses of why a business continuity plan was important but also the strategies needed to implement one and practical advice on key areas for decision such as: site, people, technology, information and key suppliers.

Bernard Jacobs, a consultant at specialist business continuity consultancy Biscon Planning adds “SMEs often overlook the need to instil and manage a continuity plan, seeing it as costly or an inconvenience. We hope that this forum has helped to educate Surrey businesses of the need to plan for any eventuality to ensure that their business remains active.”

RAMSAC has received some excellent feedback from attendees, many of whom had admitted that business continuity planning was something that they had previously never seriously considered or really understood. May concludes, “We hope that all attendees now have a clearer understanding of how and why to employ a continuity plan and the advantages that this could offer.”

RAMSAC is in the process of planning the third of this year’s forums to be held at their offices on the 15th September and will focus on mobile working. For more information regarding this event please contact melanie.wilcock@ramsac.com.