Anyone starting a business ‘needs a continuity plan’

Posted 11/02/2011

Anyone looking to start a business needs to make sure they have contingency plans in place should something go wrong.

This is the advice of Aviva, which carried out a survey among small to medium-sized enterprises and found that many could be putting their livelihoods at risk through inadequate planning.

Half of business owners said they did not have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place, while 16 per cent replied they did not think they needed one.

This is in spite of a recent Federation of Small Business report which showed that 80 per cent of companies affected by a major incident are forced to close within 18 months.

Aviva spokesperson David Bruce said it is understandable that entrepreneurs are taking things day by day in the current economic climate.

“But that doesn’t mean they should take their eye off the business planning side of things. A disaster or crisis can strike a business at any time,” he added.

This comes after Sylvia Constantine, IBA Start-up Business Adviser of the Year 2005, urged anyone thinking of buying a business to do their research first in order to fill knowledge gaps.