At around 2pm a major fire broke out in the offices of Future Capital in Dean Street, Soho. Around 10 per cent of the building was said to be ablaze and 60 fire fighters were sent to the scene. It is believed that the fire started within an air conditioning duct.
Fire is one of the most damaging and disruptive of events that can affect businesses. According to the Chartered Management Institute’s Business Continuity Report 2009, 33% of the public and private sector organisations surveyed revealed that they address the threat of fire within their Business Continuity Plans. That leaves a staggering 67% who haven’t.
It certainly isn’t sufficient from my point of view to have data backed up off site as the only resilience. From the time the building is evacuated to the time employees get to other offices or a recovery site could be time that revenue is lost, customer service is disrupted and reputation is either maintained or diminished. As this particular fire is being well publicised, customers of Future Capital may have some sympathy but what would happen were it not in the news, and those customers were oblivious to the fire, and they couldn’t get through to the company when they expected to?
A rapid response solution which re-routes those incoming customer calls to employees’ mobile phones, home phones etc. would reduce that downtime by possibly hours allowing business as normal for such a company affected by such devestating damage.
It appears that there are no casulties from the blaze which is good news, I just hope Future Capital, the business, does not become the casulty as a result of this fire.
Author: Karen Jones
