A range of events can severely disrupt organisations and prevent them from operating normally - terrorism, fire, power outages, natural catastrophes and supply chain breakdowns are some of the obvious ones.

Property and stock may be damaged, employees may not be able to travel to work, and customers may not receive services. An ability to restore operations as quickly as possible minimises financial loss and enhances credibility with stakeholders and in some cases makes the difference between business survival and failure.

Due to events such as 7/7 and Buncefield, along with the potential impact of Avian flu, there is greater awareness of the importance of rapid business recovery, and expectations have been raised that today's organisations are capable in this area.

Many organisations have Business Continuity Plans, covering areas such as IT recovery or emergency response, but they may be too narrow in focus, or may be unable to cope with new and emerging threats.

Best-practice Business Continuity Management (BCM) focuses on those critical business processes that need to be protected - and then restored - in times of business interruption rather than on narrow issues of infrastructure recovery.

Marsh was involved in creating the new British Standard for BCM (BS25999) which is scheduled to be released before the end of 2006. The Standard will create a common, best-practice framework against which organisations can demonstrate effective BCM and use it as a potential competitive advantage.

Critical questions you need to consider

• Have you considered all of your business processes (extending into your supply chain) that may be affected in the event of business interruption?
• Have you fully considered the 'people issues' when drawing up plans - such as capabilities for employees to work from home?
• Do you update your plans to take into account new threats, such as Avian Flu, and the changes taking place within your organisation?
• Do you test your plans on a regular basis so that gaps can be identified and staff can be trained?