Business disruptions occur for a variety of reasons - some foreseeable and some unforeseen. While the likelihood of any individual event may be small, the business impact of disruptions can be immense. To survive, you must protect your business against crises.

If disaster strikes then it is possible to fall back on insurance to cover costs of buildings and machinery, but it does not cover the risk that customers will go elsewhere while a company is rebuilding its infrastructure.

There are two keys to a successful disaster recovery plan - detailed planning and robust testing.

Plans do not have to be hugely sophisticated or expensive to implement. Smaller companies can take advantage of relatively cheap modern technology in order to put in place a basic contingency plan. A simple solution may be to have a reciprocal arrangement with a neighbouring business whereby companies host backups of each other's data.

Testing should include practical exercises so that staff can see how the plan will work in practice, and to ensure that it is completely viable.