Just 58 per cent of businesses have plans in place to tackle unexpected disruptions, according to a new report by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

The report, “Managing Threats in a Dangerous World”, also found that fewer than half of private sector businesses (49 per cent) had prepared for threats to their day-to-day running. A worrying 16 per cent of total respondents had no idea whether or not their company had crisis plans that they should follow in case of emergency.

At a time when high-profile cases of business continuity failures have attracted significant media attention – the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan and BAA’s failures at a snowbound Heathrow over Christmas are some recent examples – it is perhaps unsurprising that 82 per cent of those surveyed claimed their senior managers considered business continuity management as important or very important. 

But that figure does not correspond with the numbers of employees who did not know how to put business continuity strategies into practice.

Ruth Spellman, chief executive of CMI, said: “The report shows that UK organisations must be better at putting plans in place to deal with disruptions to their day-to-day business.”

The CMI recommended that businesses start to take serious steps towards comprehensive crisis management planning, and suggested those plans should be tested regularly and integrated into wider management strategy.

http://www.fm-world.co.uk/news/fm-industry-news/uk-companies-lack-crisis-management-plans/