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Companies must put disaster recovery plans in place which will allow them to keep in contact with staff, it is argued.

Brian Sommer, writing in his Zdnet blog, claims he held a conversation on the subject with a chief financial officer who highlighted the need for communication plans.

The blog states issues such as contacting workers during a disaster lasting more than 72 hours must be taken into account.

Mr Sommer outlines a situation in which members of staff are not able to be contacted due to a prolonged period without electricity, leading to their mobile and landline telephones becoming unusable.

IT business bosses must also consider a disaster system to allow workers to access important information stored in emails without an internet connection, he urges.

Firms are also advised to not keep their master phone contact directly only online, in order to avoid losing the data in the result of a disaster.

Meanwhile, earlier today it was claimed by risk management expert Michael Welles that so-called Black Monday should serve to warn businesses that even giant firms can fail.

This, he continued, should encourage businesses to implement disaster recovery systems.