Continuity expert derides 80 percent post-disaster survival rates
Mel Gosling of the Business Continuity Institute looks into notion that 80 percent of businesses fail after a disaster if they lack contingency plans; poppycock, he says, citing a series of incidents in the United Kingdom
To the list of infamous lies — the check is in the mail, you can do anything with a law degree — we can now add this little gem: “80 percent of businesses affected by a major incident close within eighteen months if they do not have a contingency plan in place.” Readers may be shocked to hear us say so, seeing as that we ourselves have repeated that little chestnut over the years, but Mel Gosling, a Member of the Business Continuity Institute and managing director of Merrycon, has done the heavy lifting and has found the statistics do not support the claim. During the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001, he explained recently, 100 percent of British farms lacked contingency plans, yet less than 10 percent closed as a result. Likewise, 90 percent of the businesses near Carlisle, England failed to develop pre-disaster plans, yet only 20 percent failed after massive flooding in the region in 2005. And so on.
Most interestingly, in his effort to debunk the statistic, Gosling failed to locate the original source, leading him (and us) to believe that the claim is a homeland security urban legend. “It has, though, been repeated again and again over the years to frighten executives into developing business continuity plans,” said Gosling. “Just when I thought that the business continuity profession had decided to stop dragging out such a dubious statistic it has reappeared in all its glory.” Here at Homeland Security Daily Wire, we take such matters seriously, and we hereby promise to do our part to stamp out this lie. The best method: never mention it again.
-read more in Mel Gosling’s Business Continuity report
