The coldest winter we've experienced in decades set alarm bells ringing for small businesses up and down the country, as many realised they didn't have in place appropriate contingency plans when disaster struck.

It's estimated the bad weather had cost small and medium-sized businesses more than £7bn and thousands of firms had to deal with the harsh reality of what happens when business continuity isn't addressed or managed properly.

Weather conditions, however, are only one example of the kind of crises that businesses must be prepared to deal with. There's a whole range of other disasters - be that a physical adversity such as a fire, theft or flood or, indeed, an IT crisis such as data loss or complete system failure, that businesses need to recognise and have in place an appropriate business continuity strategy that will deal with such risk.

With statistics from IBM stating 80% of those firms that do not have a business continuity plan will go out of business, it's clear that contingency planning is fundamental to the lifeblood of any company, to ensure they can survive during periods of crisis. Companies need to create a resilient business continuity plan and there are a number of simple, yet crucial steps that must be taken if a robust strategy is to be implemented.

First and foremost, a business needs to understand the nature of the risk. Companies should carry out a risk assessment to identify critical areas which would cause the most damage to finances and reputation. It's advised that firms conduct a business impact analysis to ensure they know how functions would be affected by a disaster.

Secondly, it's vital to plan what strategies would be used in the event of a disaster. Businesses need to calculate downtime costs; determine which are the most critical systems, decide whether these are dependent upon smaller systems, test critical system restores and ensure staff have the relevant knowledge.

However, business continuity involves much more than this. It is crucial businesses also invest in a robust back up system that will safely secure data by storing it offsite at primary, secondary and/or tertiary locations.

When choosing a data centre, businesses should seek a secure and resilient environment for data storage. Purpose built data centres are a much better option than facilities that have simply been converted because they can offer unique and crucial features such as emergency power generators, multiple network connectivity lines, fire protection and climate control.

For maximum security and guaranteed access to data back-ups, companies should also ensure that their telecommunications provider has the ability to connect to an alternative network if a main supplier such as BT goes down.

Over and above this, companies need to seriously think about how they would limit employee downtime when faced with a crisis. Investing in a workplace recovery site where staff can be immediately relocated in the event of an emergency, should therefore form a key part of any business continuity strategy.

Usually, workplace recovery services will offer unique centres at strategic sites throughout the UK. These ‘hot facilities' are always available and easily accessible should a business need to relocate in an emergency. Most providers of this service should be able to relocate staff within an hour to an alternative site, which will minimise staff downtime as much as possible.

If businesses are going to remain operational and, ultimately, survive when faced with a disaster it's imperative they put some serious thought and preparation into their business continuity plan, as it will be the strength of this plan that will enable a firm to function, when the odds are stacked against it.

With three state-of-the art data-centres and over 100 workplace recovery sites situated in locations all over the UK, Onyx offers packages that can be tailored to the business continuity needs of a range of business types in terms of size, revenue and market.

For further information please visit www.onyx.net/recover [1]