A vital dress rehearsal for the day disaster struck

Case study: Finers Stephens Innocent - business continuity

Last year, the offices of City law firm Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI) were rocked by a fire, then an explosion on the fifth floor. Luckily, the incident was only a simulation, organised by the firm's business continuity advisers to put the team through its paces. But it was a simulation that proved crucial three months later when the Tavistock Square bus bomb went off just two streets away from FSI's offices.

When the bomb went off, the emergency services ordered local businesses to lock their doors and prevent staff from leaving the office. When employees were allowed to leave from 3pm, many were unable to get home because train stations were still closed and services cancelled.

FSI has a dedicated business continuity team of five executives,  the heads of IT, human resources (HR), operations, the practice manager and the managing partner. 'Between us, we know enough about the people, processes, facilities and systems to hopefully get through any disaster' says Karen Meller, the companys' operations director.

On 7 July, the business continuity challenge centred on people rather than technology. Many of the 160 employees could not get into the office because of police cordons, while others had to stay in the building. "One of the biggest challenges was that our security staff were not able to get into the West End, so I actually stayed in the office overnight, so staff had somewhere to come back to if they were stranded" says Meller.

Meller believes that FSI dealt with the incident better because the firm has invested seriously in business continuity following the US 11 September attacks. FSI also worked with a business continuity specialist, to create and maintain an online business continuity plan, so that if the business continuity team was unavailable, someone else would be able to follow the procedures. They developed a five-hour disaster simulation, which revealed important lessons.  

We realised there were many things that just the five of us could physically not do" says Meller.  "We have now distributed responsibility for many tasks, from taking employees to the hospital to knowing what assets are in each part of the building."  

Not even the most comprehensive business continuity plan can anticipate every disaster. but Meller believes good planning can produce structures that can be applied to any situation.  "We couldn't possibly have anticipated a bomb going off so close to our offices, but we did have plans in place for what to do in the event of offices being closed, and staff not being able to get to work" she says. "We had cascading call lists to keep people informed, we had alternate premises and off-site computer backup. I wouldn't say we were prepared, but we were able to recover."

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