Business must play a key role in limiting the economic damage to London after Thursday's attacks, experts say.
An air of normality returned to London after the shocking events of the past 24 hours but their full impact on the capital's economy is less than clear.
Hoteliers and retailers are expected to see a fall-off in business in the short term but it is hoped that the impact in other areas will be limited.
Experts said the next few days could be vital in maintaining confidence.
Fighting back
Numbers travelling into central London were reported to be below normal levels after Thursday's travel chaos and amid some uncertainty about when London's transport system would return to normal.
"It does seem that London was quiet on Friday and it will become all the more important for Londoners to hit the ground running next week," said Dan Bridgett, from the London Chamber of Commerce.
Although the share prices of leading travel and leisure companies bounced back on Friday, the capital's hotels are most likely to suffer as people take stock after Thursday's events.
Travel agents have reported many cancellations from both domestic and foreign tourists.
However, hoteliers and tourism development organisations are putting a brave face on things.
Hilton Hotels says it has not seen a rush of cancelled bookings
Hilton Hotels says cancellations have been no higher in the past 24 hours than at other times.
"Hilton is confident that London will quickly return to normal and demonstrate traditional levels of resilience," a spokesman said.
VisitLondon is "optimistic" about the response to the attacks from foreign travel markets, believing that travellers have become more accepting of security threats and travel disruptions.
"The kind of things we have been hearing have been positive," says its spokesman Ken Kelling.
Retail hitch
London's shops were returning to normal after Thursday's disruption which prompted House of Fraser, Marks & Spencer and Arcadia among other companies to close outlets.
"We are urging firms to reopen as soon as is possible, out of economic self-interest as much as anything else," Mr Bridgett added.
There are concerns that an already struggling retail sector could be further weakened by stay-away consumers.
"Obviously there will be an effect and we will need to look at conducting public relations and marketing campaigns to stabilise things," said Jace Tyrrell, from the New West End Company, which represents retailers located on Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street.
However, he insisted that storeowners were resilient.
"Retailers have faced these kind of issues before from Iraq, foot and mouth and the closure of the central line. They have got through difficult times before.
"There may be a short term hitch in that but I believe it will stabilise very quickly."
The United States saw record retail spending in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks while consumer confidence remained high in the wake of the Madrid train bombs last year.
Contingency needed
Businesses in London have lived under the shadow of terrorist threats for many decades and many were prepared for this eventuality.
However, the severity of attacks will serve as a wake-up call for companies with no business planning in place.
"Businesses must have contingency plans," Mr Bridgett said.
"There is a great divide in British business between large firms which have contingency plans for a range of things such as terrorism compared with small firms who in far too many cases do not have any plans."
A number of City companies were forced to put contingency plans into effect and succeeded in keeping disruption to a minimum.
Among those affected was LCH.Clearnet, which clears transactions for a series of financial markets including the London Futures Market, the International Petroleum Exchange and the London Metals Exchange.
It was forced to transfer key staff to its back-up site elsewhere in London minutes after it was evacuated from its office overlooking Aldgate tube station.
It was the first time it had had to invoke its disaster recovery plans, in place for a number of years.
"We have contingency plans for data and staff transfer and they were put into action yesterday," said a spokesman.
"These plans worked extremely well. There was no interruption to the clearing process. In fact, we cleared record volumes."
Continuity Forum Comment
Thursday attacks on London, though terrible, showed the effectiveness of the planning and training undertaken by London Emergency Services and various the various Authorities involved in supporting the response to a major incident.
Over a 100 companies either invoked their Business Continuity Plans or were placed on Standby. Many retailers and some offices closed early in order to permit staff additional time to travel home and a proportion had only a skeleton Staff on Friday.
Some organisations found it difficult to control personnel as the crisis developed and some with a 'Shelter in Place' had to give way in the face of opposition from staff, which clearly indicates how difficult the issues and problems relating to personnel can be during a major incident. Those who had previously clearly communicated the organisations plans (and logic) appeared to have the least difficulties in this area. These issues are indicative of the value in embedding and communicating the planning in place to personnel on an ongoing basis and it appears many drew confidence from the awareness of the companies’ procedures.
There were a number of problems with communications reported as call levels reached capacity and some as a result had problems with Event notification, communications with personnel and call trees as a consequence. Many we feel will be updating their procedures in this area as a result.
As Londoners return to work, with an almost universal determination to continue life as normal, there will undoubtedly be an increased focus on both Security and Business Continuity Management planning. The events in London, whilst terrible and shocking, show that proper planning and communication really makes a huge difference, and we urge the majority of businesses and organisations that have yet to FULLY implement Business Continuity Management to act now to address the issues they face and develop an effective process to deal with all aspects of an events effect on their operations.
Government agencies and groups, such as the Continuity Forum, have been warning for many years of the risks of terrorist attack and all are agreed that organisations have a responsibility to personnel, customers and partners to be prepared, yet still the vast majority of organisations do not have effective BCM programmes in place.
Developing Business Continuity is no longer an issue of cost or benefits, but clearly one of responsibility. Failure to plan is planning to fail, and in light of last weeks actions the price of failure is far too high!
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