A business continuity plan is very important for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), because they are rarely able to pick up business in the wake of a disaster.

BCS recently reported on London Chamber of Commerce (LCC) findings that nine out of ten firms that lose data from a disaster are forced to close within two years of the event, and as such having a robust failsafe plan is crucial.

Steve Murphy, UK managing director of Hitachi Data Systems, said that a tested business continuity plan is "extremely important for all businesses, particularly SMBs".

"Key elements of this plan as far as data is concerned should include taking daily and weekly backups of data, perhaps considering outsourced data management and keeping backups, disks, original software license agreements, important documents and copies of these in a secure offsite location," he said.

He also stressed the importance of individuals within a company being aware of the disaster recovery plan.

The LCC figures also showed that 43 per cent of those companies that experienced disasters never recovered.

Research for Connect in 2007 found that 88 per cent of UK businesses were interested in Disaster Recovery systems primarily to protect their critical applications and data