With the 2012 Olympic Games in its early stages of launching its critical to make sure you have a business continuity plan in place, therefore not missing out on possible revenue opportunities, and in some cases avoiding possible security risks.
Studying research into business preparedness for the London 2012 Olympic games, it’s become apparent that all businesses regardless of size need to access their incident management plans to guarantee they are capable to deal with the exclusive impact the games could have. As a matter of concern it is estimated that only one in five businesses within the affected area will be reviewing their business continuity plans ahead of the games.
Safety and continuity is a critical concern for companies regardless of season, however this exceptional event offers a great opportunity to evaluate schemes in place and guarantee that your business position is solid. Research carried out by The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, found that statistically the chances are against your company enduring if you do not have a sustainable business continuity plan. If an incident does happen, a substantial 43% who fail to have a plan in place never re-open. In addition a further 80% fail inside 13 months and finally a massive 90% of companies that loose data from an incident are forced to close inside 24 months.
Financially this is a hugely beneficial year for UK businesses, with careful planning, UK companies should be in a situation to profit directly from the £1.9billion financial impact London 2012 is forecast to supply.
The positive for UK companies is that the games could open capacities to increase profit streams. However, the full potential of this will only be achieved if companies are prepared and equipped to supply on both product and service implementation. Companies need foresight and to identify where their internal infrastructure is requiring improvement to handle an increase in usage. More specifically, they need to be effective business results to transfer these unique one-off clients into returning business as word of mouth is still the best marketing strategy.
Here are the top 5 tips to summarise your companies plan as it stands:
- Does any of your existing manual processes, such as data processing, etc need to be manual consistently, having processes like this automated in times of high demand makes available staff time to tend to customer service queries.
- Conduct a test on the resilience of your networks currently in place, ensure they can handle peak traffic demands for the duration of a long period as the games will be active for a minimum of six weeks. This is especially important if you run an e-commerce company as online activity during this period is critical to business continuity.
- Investigate network access from a remote site or externally, paying special attention to large volumes of external access as staff and employees may be working from home, unable to get into work due to Olympic related logistic problems.
- Review the possibility of improving CRM capabilities as you look to increase networking and interactions with other potential clients and customers as this can important to continue customer interaction after the games and possible returning business
- Analyse your business continuity plan currently, does it equip you with a fully operational back-up in response to heightened security threats and workloads. Consider past incidents like the riots in London last year and access if your business continuity plan would suffice.
Bill Weston reports on subjects surrounding business continuity plans, including emergency and critical messaging for incident management. For more information or to request an information pack please visit http://www.pageone.co.uk/