According to
IT support services
company Managed Networks around 65% of the UK workforce may be
'out of office' today, if the calls made to their helpdesk are
representative of the experiences of businesses across the
country.
The heaviest
snowfall
in London in 18 years has led to severe travel disruptions,
particularly in the capital and the South East, where the dense
transport networks are ill-prepared to cope with such
circumstances, and many people have to commute too great a distance
to work to be able walk in instead.
The cost to the UK economy of lost productivity thanks to absent
workers and diminished footfall in shops could be up to £1.2
billion per day, the
Federation of
Small Businesses told
BBC News
on Monday. It is estimated that this could rise to as much as £4 or
£5 billion by the end of the week.
So should businesses be better prepared for such events? Nigel
Davey of Managed Networks thinks so:
‘All too often, people think about massive disasters when they
talk about business continuity but in truth, it is day to day
factors – like bad weather– that can impact us most of all. IT help
desks and support staff have all been inundated with calls today
(2nd February) from frustrated business owners who have found that
they do not have a plan in place for remote working in
circumstances just like these.’
Managed Networks suggest that companies prepare their business
continuity plans to cope not just with major disasters, but also
the smaller, more everyday crises such as the current snowfall.
They suggest the following business continuity checklist for small
and medium sized businesses:
- Prepare for lack of building access for employees. Ensure
employees can work remotely with full access to all files and
e-mail – systems like Desktop Live provide easy, cost effective
solutions.
- Create a ‘battle box’. Use it to store software discs and the
relevant licence numbers and passwords along with copies of
important documents such as insurance certificates etc. Ideally
keep a second, duplicate set of records off the premises as back
up.
- A sensible addition to the battle box is a list of key staff's
emails, passwords, telephone numbers – that way if you are shutting
or relocating your office for the day you can quickly notify
them.
- Explore contracting a second, supplementary ADSL supplier or
make sure you appreciate the restrictions of your service
guarantee. That way you can limit the chances of being without
Internet access. It may cost more but it’s a lot cheaper than
whole-company downtime.
- If you have an in-house server and you are backing up
regularly, make sure you have the server regularly maintained and
know how to recover your data if it does fail. With advances in
technology you could find that some of your hardware is now out of
production and spare parts/replacements could take weeks to
replace. Managed Networks recommends using hard drives instead of
tapes for back-up as all you will normally need in order to
retrieve your data is the drive and a USB cable.
Davey concludes ‘Failing to plan for a genuine business issue
and being unable to trade due to weather conditions can have a
serious impact on your business. The investment in prevention is
sensible and is usually returned many-fold.’