Prepare your business for emergencies

Emergencies can affect any business at any time. Taking simple steps now can keep your business running and help you recover more quickly.

Common risks to your business

When planning for emergencies, think about what risks could affect your business.

Some common risks for businesses in Scotland are:

cyber attacks
severe weather and flooding
loss of power or other utilities
transport or road disruption
supply chain problems
protests

You can find a full assessment of risks facing the UK in the National Risk Register on GOV.UK.

There are also Community Risk Registers for each region of Scotland. Find your Community Risk Register on the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service website.

Plan for emergencies

You should have a plan that outlines how your business will:

keep running during an emergency
recover after an emergency

This is sometimes called a ‘business continuity plan’.

Planning ahead can help your business:

keep serving customers
protect income and reputation
protect jobs
reduce the time it takes to recover

Keep your plan simple and focus on the things your business cannot operate without.

The plan should set out how your business will:

communicate with staff and customers
continue to provide services
protect assets – like customer data
return to normal operations after an emergency

Decide who is in charge

Decide who will lead the response if an emergency happens.

They may need to make decisions for anything not covered in your emergency plan.

Business emergency plan template

Get a checklist template to help your business prepare for extreme weather at Adaptation Scotland.

Get more information about emergency planning on Business Gateway.

Your local council also has information about emergency planning.

Get emergency planning information from your local council

Test the plan

You should test your plan to make sure it works in practice.

Testing can help you:

check that contact details are correct
make sure backup arrangements work
find problems before a real emergency happens
help staff understand their roles

You can test your plan by:

talking through an emergency scenario with your team
doing a ‘live exercise’ and acting like the emergency is really happening

Find out how your plan would help you deal with these scenarios.

After your test, make improvements to the plan based on what you learned.

Share the plan

Everyone in your business should know where to find the plan.

People should understand:

their role during an emergency
how they can help keep the business running

Review and update the plan

Review your plan when your business changes.

For example, update it when you:

move to a new location
change suppliers
introduce new systems
change staff roles
identify new risks

You should also review your plan after an emergency. Think about what worked well in the plan and what could be improved.

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