Small businesses were caught off-guard by thesevere floodingthis week as service
providers were inundated with distress calls from companies caught
in the downpour that has engulfed parts of central and southern
England.
Just weeks after northern and central England's businesses were
hit by floods, thousands more businesses were forced to either
suspend business or operate with skeleton staff after three times
the usual monthly rainfall was recorded in counties including
Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire on 20 July.
"
Business continuity needs to be done in advance for the longer
term to enable proper planning, implementation and testing of
systems," said Keith Tilley, managing director at disaster recovery
firm
Sungard Availability Services.
The Business Continuity
Institute said companies with no business continuity plan in
place should back up critical data and move it off-site as soon as
flood warnings were issued to reduce the risk of long-term effects
or even forced closure.
In the latest round of flooding, businesses in Gloucestershire,
Worcestershire and Oxfordshire were worst hit when rivers such as
the Severn and Thames burst their banks. The
Association of British
Insurers estimates that insurance claims will run into the
hundreds of millions of pounds.
Disaster recovery companies reported an extremely high number of
business continuity plan invocations and standby calls from
customers in central and western England. Most said they had not
received as many calls for a single incident since the
Buncefield fire in 2006 or the
July 7 bombings in 2005.
"This is a significant emergency situation for a number of our
customers. Accordingly, we have implemented our major incident
procedure to co-ordinate our response to the immediate situation
and the possibility of further disruption," said Rod Taylor,
director of disaster recovery company NDR. Customers who were not
able to work from their own offices had relocated to NDR
facilities, said Taylor.
Compared with other disasters such as fires or explosions,
disaster recovery companies say flooding affects many more
companies over a much wider area simultaneously. Even companies
that are not under water are affected by related power and water
cuts. The effects of flooding can also be longer lasting. It is
feared that it will take weeks and even months before businesses
will be up and running as normal again.
"Health and safety issues will mean many companies will not be
able to work out of their usual premises long after the flood
waters subside, requiring business-continuity provisioning for
extended periods of time," said Lyndon Bird, technical director of
the Business Continuity
Institute.
The Gloucester City
Council servers shut down after UPS systems ran out of power
during protracted power cuts, but the council's IT head, Jan
Harris, said there would be no permanent damage to IT systems.
Although the council buildings were flooded, the servers were
located on the second floor and were unaffected.
Fortis
Insurance in Gloucester was also affected by power cuts. The
company invoked its business continuity contract with
SunGard to take 250 positions for its staff at SunGard's
Bristol Workplace Recovery Centre.
Some business continuity providers sent mobile computer rooms
with generators to customers who had no power.
A
Gloucester-based ISP said around 400 customers had been
affected by the flooding, either directly or indirectly because of
the power and water cuts. The ISP said it was operating with a
skeleton staff at its data centre, but would re-route e-mail
services free of charge for businesses hit by the flooding to
enable employees to work from home.
Proving the value of successful business continuity plans,
several IT security suppliers in the flood-hit areas say customers
will not experience any disruption in services.
MessageLabs,
which has its global headquarters in Gloucester, said its services
would not be affected thanks to "multiple redundancies, plans and
procedures in place. Sophos in
Abingdon said teleworking was in place for key employees so
there would be no impact on customers if the company were flooded.
Database security company Secerno
in Oxford said staff would work remotely using encrypted
laptops while their offices were closed.
Gloucester-based web
hosting providerFasthosts Internet said
its business continuity plan had enabled the company to keep its
300,000 customers' websites online. Although not directly affected
by the flood waters, when the power was cut, Fasthosts' datacentre
switched to its diesel generators.
Many other companies affected by the floods are also continuing
with business as usual, thanks to their business continuity
plans.
Companies unable to access their premises are being relocated to
specialist business continuity centres, where they can carry on
with business as usual.
However, many small and medium businesses (SMBs) have not been
as fortunate, and they have been encouraged to look for affordable
business continuity and disaster recovery plans aimed at this
market.
"Many small businesses hold the misconception that business
continuity and disaster recovery plans are an expensive outlay for
little return. However it is events such as this unseasonable
weather that proves their worth," said Mike Osborne, Managing
Director of ICM Business Continuity Services.
SMBs have again been the worst hit in the extensive flooding as
many have not been able to keep their businesses going, with some
facing inevitable closure.
"Small businesses often do not have full business continuity
plans that include alternative premises, telecommunications or
e-mail systems," said Lyndon Bird, technical director of the
Business Continuity Institute.
The Federation of Small
Businesses has set aside £500,000 for those businesses that are
unable get bank loans and suffering severe hardship.
SA Mathieson, editor ofInfosecurity
Magazinecontributed to this report