In one word, Yes! Although the news media tends to obsess over major disasters such as storms, flooding, or man-made disasters like terrorism, events such as IT failure can be devastating enough to destroy a small business.

The Chartered Management Institute have found that IT failure remains the biggest source of problems with 40% reporting problems last year. Extreme weather followed with 25% and loss of vital personnel with 24%. Fire accounted for 5% of issues with terrorism accounting for only 2%.

These results demonstrates the need for having an effective Business Continuity Plan in place, backed up by the right resources. Reading the business continuity management standard – BS 25999 would make a good starting point. Many professionals argue that BCP boils down to thinking about your weak spots in an objective way, whether this is your IT systems, your key members of staff, property, plant, etc.

Using this knowledge you can then plan and put back-ups in place. Once the plans and systems are ready, be sure to keep them up to date.