James Crask, business continuity senior manager, PwC, said: "Of immediate concern is the safety of staff and others based at or visiting your premises. Good businesses will be communicating to their staff and customers about the situation about how they have been affected and the approach they are taking to manage disruption.
"Businesses with office staff can consider more flexible ways of working to give greater adaptability. This might include adjusting working hours or allowing certain staff to work from home, which maintains productivity and addressing safety concerns.
"For many, the impacts will be wider than direct damage and losses caused by rioting, and a successful recovery will be driven by the actions taken in the immediate aftermath of these events. It is crucial for businesses to take a proportional approach to the threat, because a knee-jerk response could be more damaging to the recovery than the threat itself.
"Of course, many of those affected are small and medium-sized organisations that might not have the money to invest in their resilience capabilities. Such organisations need to understand the threats to their operations and what can be done in the short term to manage them. Issues may include:
"Many businesses and communities have been badly affected, and it is at times like this that robust crisis management and business continuity arrangements will pay dividends to any organisation."
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