Episode 8: Unexpected Businesses Disruptions, Are you prepared?

In episode 8, we’re joined by three expert guests: Esma, Senior Business Continuity and Emergency Planning Officer at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Services; Emergency Planning and Risk Manager, Julie Ferguson from Lancaster University; and Dharmesh Nayee, Emergency Planning Officer at Lancashire County Council. Together, we dive into a topic that’s vital for every business, no matter its size or industry—Business Continuity Planning, or BCP for short.

We explore what a Business Continuity Plan is, how to begin creating one for your business, and the best ways to put it into practice.

For more information about all things Business Fire Safety, please visit: www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk/safety/business-safety

Links to Websites/Resources discussed in the episode:

• The Flood Hub 
• Lancashire Resilience Forum
• Environment Agency Section of Flooding on the Government website

Remember, it's not just about protecting your business, it's about protecting your employees, your customers, and your future.

And remember if you liked our episode, please like and subscribe and let’s make Lancashire safer together.

Transcript

[00:00:03.220] - Host (Lucinda)
Welcome to Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service's podcast series, Out of the Ashes: Stories from Lancashire. Today's episode, we are discussing a topic which is crucial for every business, regardless of the size or industry, Business Continuity Planning, or BCP for short.

[00:00:19.550] - Host (Lucinda)
In today's world, where unexpected disruptions can strike at any time, having a solid business continuity plan can make the difference between a business that survives and one that doesn't. We have three guests with us today, experts in the field of business continuity. We have Esma, who is a Lancashire Fire and Rescue Services Senior Business Continuity and Julie Ferguson from Lancaster University, a Emergency Planning and Risk Manager, and Dharmesh Nayee, an Emergency Planning Officer at Lancashire County Council. Today, they'll be sharing their insights and answering some of the most pressing questions about business continuity planning.

[00:00:57.850] - Host (Lucinda)
Thank you for joining us today. Firstly, I'm just going to ask you three very quick fire questions, and you can only answer yes or no. Are you ready?

[00:01:05.400] - Julie 
yes.

[00:01:06.600] - Host (Lucinda)
Does every business need a continuity plan?

[00:01:09.150] - Dharmesh
No.

[00:01:10.040] - Julie 
For me, a yes.

[00:01:11.700] - Host (Lucinda)
Is it easy to create a business continuity plan and maintain it?

[00:01:16.530] - Dharmesh
Yes.

 
[00:01:17.760] - Julie 
I'm on the fence with that one because they can become quite complicated, especially if you look at varying forms of guidance. A business continuity plan, for me, be as simplistic as you need it to be to make it functional.

[00:01:34.670] - Host (Lucinda)
We'll dive into that further in the podcast. Finally, by having a business continuity plan, will it always work?

 
[00:01:41.380] - Both
No.

[00:01:42.450] - Host (Lucinda)
That was very clear. We'll go into the episode now. So we'll just start with the basics. Could you both briefly explain what a business continuity plan is and why it's so important for businesses to have one?

[00:01:54.410] - Dharmesh
Yeah, so a business continuity plan is a document, really, which has details of information that you may want to have or you would want to have when there's an incident that's impacting your ability to be able to deliver your business or your critical functions. So it should cover things like risk management in there, your backup plans, really. So if you can't get into your premises as normal, how are you going to be able to deliver your critical functions without having access to your premises, those things.

[00:02:29.640] - Julie 
For me, it's a guide on how you can continue to function, be it whether you're a business, an academic department in a university, in a school, part of the fire service, how you can continue to deliver that service function during a major incident where you may have lost either your premises, whether you've had a power outage. So you're not actually responding to the actual incident. You're looking at how you can actually continue to deliver your livelihood in a sense.

[00:02:57.400] - Host (Lucinda)
Well, thank you for the insight. It makes it a It's a lot clearer to me what a business continuity plan is, because I'll be honest, I am not aware of what one is fully. So this episode will be very insightful for me. So in a BCP, what are the common risks or scenarios that they typically cover?

[00:03:14.670] - Julie 
Depending on the size of your organisation, for small businesses, it can hold some very basic information to help support them in the event that their business is impacted by an incident. It could be supply chain disruption, it could be a fire It could be a fire on their premises, it could be a flood affecting their premises, it could even be a road closure, an evacuation, many, many impacts on a business that you won't necessarily consider. And within a BC plan, you don't need to actually consider them. You look at the consequences. So for me, a basic BC plan should look at impacts on staffing, your supply chain. Are there any critical functionalities? Again, we've gone back to that word critical, but within your own business, there should be some level of understanding of what you really need to have in place.

[00:04:08.960] - Dharmesh
Just to interject on what we actually mean by critical, really. The classical way of doing it is by looking at your business functions. So looking at all the functions you do. It doesn't have to be proper detail, but at a high level. For instance, if you have a shop, a corner shop, one of your functions might be to make sure that you've got the right level of stock. So that can be one of your functions on there. What you need to do is then look at all your other functions you do to run that shop. So managing the tills, being there to be that, give some advice on products and such to customers, making sure that the shop's clean and all that So just looking at those functions there, what you then need to do to work out what your critical ones are, or to consider, if that function is not being carried out, what impact does it have on your business? And from that, you can really work out Which ones are your more critical ones.

[00:05:16.850] - Julie 
The plan should be there as a guide and be flexible and fluid enough to adapt to any situation. While we're here to talk about flooding today, flooding has many consequential impacts. And your business premises may not be flooded, but you can be affected by flooding, which sounds really strange, but that's actually what happens, and we've seen it happen time and again.

[00:05:41.150] - Dharmesh
Just to elaborate a bit on what Julie was saying there. So, yeah, it's about the consequence management side of things, which is more in line with what you think about when you think about business continuity. However, you do need to do your risk assessments to work out what can actually impact your business. And it's just looking at your business and the business context. So a business that's in hospitality will have a different range of risks that would affect it as to something else, I don't know, like an accounting firm, for example, where that might be a bit more back office staff work. And the way that we look at it within my organisation as a local authority is that we've got a range of services, a range of functions that we do. Our business continuity is done at service level. Each service would have their own plan or has their own plans, should I say. Looking at the services, the range of services we have, we do have the back office functions like payroll. And then we deliver services to members of the public, so looking at our social care teams that go out and about.

[00:06:50.690] - Dharmesh
So when you're looking at risks, something that might be flood disruption related would impact those two different business areas or services differently. So there are a range of risks that you can look at in your business context. We tend to use what's known as the National Risk Register. Those are risks that have been looked at, prioritised, and assessed nationally. We then take that and put a Lancashire context to it. Some of that information that we get from the Risk Register is available to the community through Lancashire Resilience a forum website. So that's a good way to look at, to try and get a layman's understanding of risks and then just have a look at your own businesses, their context, and what can actually affect you. So you do that just to work out the consequences, really, and that feeds into your business continuity.

[00:07:51.740] - Julie 
I think the pandemic brought business continuity very much to the fore. The ability and the agility for organisations to actually move to the response to the pandemic, be it having to move online for schools with online learning, but the disruption to the supply chain around the world. When you put that into the context of flooding, a flood in affecting a motorway can severely disrupt the supply chain.

[00:08:22.630] - Esma
I completely agree with my two colleagues. So ultimately, business continuity should focus on managing the consequences on any business interruption event. For us at Lancashire Fire & Rescue, as a Category 1 responder, we're legally required to ensure that we have a business continuity management system in place to allow us to continue to respond to emergencies in event of any disruptions. For us, it does make sense to follow the best practises for business continuity. However, even at Lancashire Fire and Rescue, we will focus on some of the risks within our business continuity plans that will allow us to continue delivering our services. On a very rudimentary level, most of our plans will focus on the loss of premises, utilities, ICT, vehicles, equipment, and staff, and any contingencies in relation to that.

[00:09:19.800] - Host (Lucinda)
So now that we understand what a business continuity plan is and the differences for different types of organisations, what are the first steps a business should take when they look at starting to develop one?

[00:09:32.330] - Dharmesh
I'm of the mind that it fits in with your normal business planning. So what is your business there to do? What functions do you need to do to be able to deliver your business objectives? So it's all about knowing your own business. Then looking at your resources that you need, your staffing, looking at your premises, your suppliers, your contractors, any ICT equipment.

[00:10:01.050] - Julie 
Even if you can deliver your function, at 50%, you're still delivering some function. It's a slim down version, maybe, is what you could end up delivering with a business continuity plan rather than your actual full nuts, bolts, braces, etc. It's very much a slim down, so doing the bare minimum so that you can continue to function. And again, it goes back to depending on what the business actually is. A local independent retailer, shop owner is going to look at still trying to serve their local community. It could even be that working with Lancashire Resilience Forum, if you're in Lancashire or any of the resilience forums elsewhere, they can be looking for additional help, support, resource, especially if it is a massive community-wide event.

[00:10:53.520] - Julie 
Flooding could mean that rest centres have had to be opened, the voluntary organisations are always helping out with that. It could be that businesses step in to help supply of food to those locations, etc. Because a local community can be very badly impacted by a flooding event. But it also can go back to within the plan, understanding your staffing. From an insurance perspective, insurance companies will be looking for certain basic information.

[00:11:27.390] - Julie 
If you have to make an insurance claim, having all that information available in your plan is a good idea. The more complex your organisation, obviously, the more information that would need to be included. But I think Dharmesh did give a very good basic outline of what should be a good basis within the plan.

[00:11:49.710] - Esma
I think, put very simply, your business continuity plan can be the bridge to gap your business delivery of your critical activities from a business disruption event until you're able to continue delivering at 100 %.

[00:12:06.820] - Host (Lucinda)
From everything that's been said, creating a business continuity plan looks like it's just the beginning and it doesn't end once the plan is created. What are the common challenges businesses face when implementing their plan, and how can you overcome those struggles?

[00:12:22.350] - Julie 
I think one of the common challenges is that the plan gets written and left on the shelf. And when you go to actually use it, it's covered in dust, or people don't actually know that the plan actually exists. It's making sure that the plan is current, relevant, and kept up to date. A lot of plans carry contact information. It could be for external suppliers, account numbers. It could be for the people that you might need to call in to help, obviously carrying a certain level of personal information, which also needs to be considered the security around that and content. However, people need to be aware that the plan actually exists for it to actually be of any use to anybody. I think that's what every organisation, even those with legal requirements, to have business continuity in place, those are the challenges they face.

[00:13:21.820] - Julie 
Business continuity is not necessarily a dirty word, but it's not certainly a popular phrase within organisations because people just see it as more work. The pandemic, business continuity plans did really come into fruition at the time. But again, we're a few years out from the pandemic now, and that memory has started to fade again.

[00:13:44.990] - Julie
And it's the challenge of trying to constantly keep the plans current and relevant, but while also them not just sitting on a shelf gathering dust because people don't think that they're actually needed. People use them in anger during an incident, and I'm talking from my own experience. However, during normal day-to-day life, people don't see that they're actually needed. Within small businesses, They'll all say, could push back and say, Do we actually need one? Especially a business that's never maybe actually had a business interruption impact them at all.

[00:14:24.340] - Host (Lucinda)
So rather than collecting dust on a shelf, what would you suggest that people do with their plan? Should they practise them in a pretend scenario or do they just look at them on the shelf?

[00:14:37.390] - Dharmesh
So in terms of communicating, once you've got your plan and once you're putting it together, you might be going out to your team, your colleagues to get some of the information to put in there. So that's one way of being able to communicate the importance of what you're doing or what you're trying to achieve. Once you do have that plan in place, being able to communicate that out to everyone that that exists, especially to those who've given responsibilities within that plan to do such things. So they know that they've got roles and responsibilities within that plan. It's good to communicate that wider as well. So you instill confidence in your suppliers and contractors. They're aware that you've got a business continuity plan. And if they're relying on you for some service or goods, you'll still be able to do as much as you can to be able to provide them with those services and goods. Even if there is a flood coming down the road, that thing.

[00:15:34.880] - Dharmesh
The other aspect of it is what we alluded to is around the testing element of it. You can use that to help with communicating the plan as well. I actually putting that into a real or fictitious scenario that has real-world consequences and just work through a scenario. So if there is another pandemic, what actions are you going to take as a to be able to still stay afloat? Those sort of things. If there is flood, what are you going to do if you can't get to your premises? Or if you have a member of staff who can't travel in to work that day. So you've got a loss of staff there. Those sort of things, work through those scenarios. Get it embedded really into people's minds of what that plan is, what you're trying to achieve with it, and the value of it, really. And it's good to continue doing those tests.

[00:16:34.170] - Dharmesh
From my own experience, when you see people that you're trying to get involved in those tests, they're like, Oh, what's this about? Why am I doing this? But then when they're in the midst of it and you are asking them, Right, okay, this has occurred, how are you going to deal with that? Who do you need to talk to? What do you need by your side? That helps then develop that plan, those arrangements, to make them stronger, make them more fit for purpose.

[00:16:59.890] - Dharmesh
And at the same time, get them more enthusiastic about it. Because when it comes to a disruption, you want to know what you're going to do beforehand. Try and rehearse it as much as you can, similar to a fire alarm test. We've all done them at school, and the fire alarm goes off, you go outside. So just get that rehearsed into the training.

[00:17:21.290] - Julie 
And with the training and the exercising, you can interject a bit of fun. You make it a scenario that they may never have experienced before. At the At the end of the day, not everybody is ever going to experience any disruption in their lives. There are certain areas in the country that flood regularly. We're aware of those. I'm very practised. But when you're looking at trying to deliver training, just people sitting in a room being talked at. At the end of the day, they're going to walk out in three days later. They're not going to remember anything you said to them. The same with the exercises. The exercise scenarios you can develop, you can create a little bit of a fun element to it so that it becomes a memorable experience and engage the people, but also, in a sense, make it challenging. Because with an exercise, it's almost the world is your oyster. You can throw different things in it and you can even embellish slightly from what would actually happen in reality, because you can also throw false information in there as well, because that's what actually happens a real incident. You never actually quite know what's actually going to happen, and you're being drip-fed information anyway.

[00:18:38.900] - Julie 
And as a business owner, you're not necessarily going to be the front and centre of any multi-agency response. You're going to be getting given information through different channels. It's allowing that almost fun element to happen before you end up having to actually use that plan in anger during a really stressful situation. And yet exercises can also be quite stressful. Over the years, I've done quite a number, and I've seen quite senior management who've almost crumbled in the middle of the exercise. But over the years, we've learned to try and tease out some of those skills. And it's a learning exercise. There's no right or wrong answer. And it's making people feel comfortable that they've got the ability to make wrong decisions or do something that actually has been completely wrong that actually has got detrimental consequences potentially on the business so that they actually learn not to do that for real if they're actually responding for real.

[00:19:42.710] - Host (Lucinda)
Looking at some real-world examples, I'm aware that Storm Desmond, back in 2015, I know it was a long time ago, but it impacted several businesses and organisations across Lancashire. Do you want to maybe share some success stories of where they implemented their business continuity plan and continued to thrive?

[00:20:02.810] - Julie 
So with Storm Desmond, just to give a little bit of context, between Junction 33 and Junction 35 of the M6, everything within that area had no power due to flooding. There was significant flooding around the Caton Road area and the bottom end of Lancaster City Centre. Actually, the fire station was under 6 feet of water at one point. So there were significant impacts right across the city. Both the bridges were closed. There was a bridge strike from some shipping containers. Basically, all the transport was disrupted, and consequently, 60,000 properties, the University, the hospital, all without power for up to three days. So you can imagine the knock-on effects it had for a number of businesses in the area.

[00:20:54.600] - Julie 
And that's really where a lot of businesses, brought their business continuity plans into place. Some of them just had to shop for those few days. The Spar shop on campus, they eventually managed to open their doors and allow a few people in at a time and take cash. The fact that there was no cash machines working in the local area because we had no power at all. And people don't actually really comprehend that if a flooding event happens and takes out a substation in the locality, everything relies on power. You can't get petrol out of a petrol pump, you can't get cash out of a cash machine. It's not just about lights.

[00:21:30.400] - Julie 
From a business perspective, there was a lot of support put in for businesses in the following months. There were businesses which were out of their premises for a period of time due to the flooding impacts they had. I know there was certainly a restaurant on the quay in Lancaster, where I think it was nearly six months before they reopened because the building had to be dried out. I don't believe they had a business continuity plan in place, and they just literally had to stand the loss. The business is still trading, but there are other businesses have subsequently closed because the number of impacts they've felt over the last few years. Because if you think, while in the last 10 years, there has been a lot has happened, certainly within the Lancaster area, the impacts of Storm Desmond, and then obviously the impacts on the pandemic on some businesses will have been quite detrimental if they didn't have that ability to adapt their business model through consideration of business Continuity Planning.

[00:22:31.450] - Dharmesh
Just to add on that, I'm aware of a care home. During those floods in 2015, they were signed up to the Environment Agency warnings, and they were aware that their area was coming to flood. So they were able to put business continuity arrangements in place to relocate the residents from the ground floor up to the first floor, and then keeping them dry and looked after there. So that's another success story. They were fortunate to have two floors and be able to do that. But they made sure that they were linked in with knowing what was occurring. So through those flood warning alerts, flood alerts through the Environment Agency. And again, just monitoring the situation, looking out the windows, keeping on top of the news, what was going on in the area. So, yeah, they adapted very, very well.

[00:23:30.020] - Julie 
I think there has been a step change over the last few years since Storm Desmond. The Met Office have become a lot more quicker at naming storms. And the fact that they now published the annual list of storm names in advance has pushed that into the public consciousness. We're all aware of the yellow, ambour, red alerts and the news. Obviously, we've got the 24-hour news cycle, but the news are more willing to push those out. Obviously, the Environment Agency are putting out flood alerts all of the time as well. The Met Office have linked to those flood alerts as well. If you get a warning that there's a storm in your area, they also would advise you to check the Environment Agency website for any flood risks as well. And once you know that you potentially can sign up for the flood risk alerts on the gov.uk website. But once you know that you live or operate your business from an area that has potential for flooding, you can also check the flood risk. And there's, again, three different levels of flood alert, flood risk on those websites. But it is very much more in the public consciousness now than it was potentially 10 years ago.

[00:24:47.580] - Esma
Just to provide a little bit more context in regards to Lancashire and Rescue. So as an emergency service, we're not immune to the impact of flooding and weather events such as Storm Desmond. And specifically during Storm Desmond, our fire station in Lancaster was impacted with flooding. Thankfully, all the previous work that we had done on the business continuity side of things allowed us to act very quickly in enacting that plan and saved us time in having to make any decisions in the moment, which allowed us then to move our appliances to an area of safety, safeguard some of our infrastructure within the station, and most importantly, allowed us to continue making the communities of Lancashire safer.

[00:25:38.090] - Host (Lucinda)
It's been a very fact-filled, packed episode, but I think it's been very useful for everyone to listen to and definitely go away and learn stuff. So before we finish, what's the one thing you'd like the listeners to take away from this episode? I'll go to each of you because I feel like you might have different types of opinions.

[00:25:58.270] - Dharmesh
Thanks. It It comes back to that, that all saying, Failing to plan is planning to fail. I think... Sorry to go back to something that I was expecting groans in the room when I said that, to be honest, with it being such a cliché, but it's born out of truth, really. You don't have to have a plan that's war and peace. Start off small, build it up over time as you need to. Just fit it around your business, really. What you can do is you can go to the Lancashire Resilience Forum website. We've got resources on there to help businesses on their first steps, really. There's a plan template in there, some more advice about other arrangements you can have in place, or like a grab bag, are having stuff with you that will be really beneficial if you needed to use them during a disruption.

[00:26:56.610] - Julie 
So for me, it's really you never know what's around the corner. So having something, be it some basic information, if you're an independent small shop, to having those full, complete, complex corporate plans if you work in a massive organisation, Having something available as a guide for those people actually on the front line, having to actually try and respond in anger if there is actually an event, specifically flooding, which could also have major other consequential impacts, such as power outages, etc. But it's ensuring that those plans that you do actually have, someone actually has knowledge of them and that you've actually tested them to an extent. It doesn't have to be a full scale belt and braces test, but actually having an understanding of what is actually required when you're actually trying to use them.

[00:27:58.510] - Esma
I think for me, It's a matter of communicating the plans to the people that will be involved in the response during a business disruption incident, as well as maybe to your suppliers and any stakeholders involved in your business delivery.

[00:28:17.740] - Host (Lucinda)
So thank you all of you for sharing your expertise today. It's definitely worth a listen to all the way back several times. I think it's very clear that business continuity plans are not just a small thing that you do once and you forget about. You need to plan it, write it, test it, and make sure everyone knows about it.

[00:28:38.010] - Dharmesh
Exactly.

[00:28:38.480] - Julie 
Absolutely.

[00:28:39.200] - Host (Lucinda)
To our listeners out there, if you haven't already, now is the time to start thinking about your own Business Continuity Plan. Remember, it's not just about protecting your business, it's about protecting your employees, your customers, and your future.

[00:28:52.170] - Host (Lucinda)
If you're interested in finding out more about business continuity plan or business fire safety, please head to our website on www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk/safety/business-safety You can also get lots of information on other websites such as The Flood Hub, Lancashire Resilience Forum, and the EA section on the flood warnings on the government website. All the links will be included in the episode notes below.

[00:29:21.920] - Host (Lucinda)
And remember, if you like our episode, please like and subscribe, and let's make Lancashire safer together.