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 Continuity Central recently published an article drawing together some of the initial business continuity lessons that can be learned from the terrorist attacks on London on July 7th. We have since had further contributions and this article lists these. Identities are being kept anonymous to allow business continuity managers to be open about failures as well as successes.
Cordon access
* Some organisations did not know how to contact their local police service / local authority to try and get emergency access through cordons and into exclusion zones. This would indicate that the required relationships were missing in certain areas.
* Access through cordons was required because some companies evacuated their premises and forgot to take with them the information / data for the disaster recovery / business continuity site - this raises questions on back up and replication issues.
Transport issues
Some companies experienced difficulties relocating key staff members to disaster recovery / business continuity sites.
Communications
* Information flows between the responding agencies and affected organisations could be improved, so that any planning assumptions can be validated or negated, prior to any major incident.
* Business continuity managers may need to build relationships with their counterparts in the other premises around their immediate geographical location, to ensure that response activities are coordinated.
* The first priority should always be human life. However, there is a dire need for better support and information for businesses at the time of an incident.
* One of the concerns that has surfaced is the relationship / communication that should exist between the corporate crisis management teams and the first responders, in particular the emergency services. This was somewhat lacking during this incident.
Media response
Self appointed experts can provide a false picture of situations and their words of wisdom should be examined carefully.
Staffing issues
Some staff from a number of organisations self evacuated from premises, contrary to advice.
Wider impacts
It is a mistake to assume that only businesses with actual offices and staff 'based' in London were affected. Businesses may have a relatively small presence in London but may have staff who are 'mobile' and working in the London area. There is a danger of the business response being too London-centric and forgetting about the needs of other businesses in the UK, and in fact globally, who were caught up in the incident.
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•Date: 22nd July 2005 •Region: UK •Type:
Article •Topic: BC general
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