Storm Emma created some of the most testing weather conditions experienced in the UK for years, grinding many organisations to a halt and causing many to invoke business continuity plans to remain operational. It also exposed a number of shortfalls in plans, according to Databarracks. It says almost half of those organisations would have struggled due to their business continuity plan being outdated or recently untested. Its data suggests that just half of UK organisations are confident that their business continuity plan is up-to-date.

Weather warnings are expected for the rest of the working week, as the so-called Beast from the East continues to wreak havoc in parts of the UK. Hundreds of schools are shut, and road conditions remain dangerous up and down the country. Amber and yellow warnings have been issued by the Met Office, with London and the South East badly affected.

Former Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has called on the government to spend more on Britain's Armed Forces, and at the same time, chief of the general staff, General Sir Nicholas Carter, pointed to a return of cold war tensions with Russia and raised the prospect of hostilities between the country and NATO forces.

The long awaited update to ISO 31000 has just been released. Chair of the iSO technical committee, Jason Brown, says the revised version of ISO 31000 focuses on the integration with the organisation and the role of leaders and their responsibility. “Risk practitioners are often at the margins of organisational management and this emphasis will help them demonstrate that risk management is an integral part of business,” he explains.

Inoni has launched the latest product in their suite of business continuity planning tools for SMEs. Inoni Micro, built specifically for organisations up to 50 employees, offers a scaled-back and easy to complete online tool for managing plans.

The large-scale cyber attacks that took place last year reaffirmed the need to build cyber resilient organisations, according to the seventh edition of the BCI Horizon Scan 2018, released today by the Business Continuity Institute and the BSI. For the second year in a row, the threat of data breach ranked second.

Good practice suggests that the best place to start is by having a policy that identifies what level of protection staff are granted. The norm is to adopt the highest standard of any country in which the organisation operates; for example, if your company is global and has locations in the UK and Cambodia, the company should adopt the UK’s approach to staff safety and security.

The key risks for rail (and similarly for transport) will continue to be managing the disruptive impact of severe weather events. This includes not just continuity of service but also the effect on the integrity of the infrastructure. Risk mitigations such as improving flood defences and managing drainage remain priorities. Maintaining high safety standards and reducing train accident risk will continue to be high on the agenda.

Security and recovery will rise further up the agenda in 2018. Malware and ransomware attacks will continue to dominate, with devastating consequences for affected businesses. With the widespread adoption of the Internet of Things, we will also see an increase in the number and complexity of endpoints, which could in turn lead to an increase in zero attacks.

Digital has so far been about pace and urgency. The race to embrace the fourth industrial revolution is still being run – but next year expect the early front-runners to ease up a little. Digital transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. And that’s good because it gives business continuity professionals the time to identify and mitigate the new risks that the digital revolution presents.

British food safety standards have been making headlines yet again with several UK supermarket chains suspending contracts with 2 Sisters Food Group as the Food Standards Agency (FSA) launches an investigation into the alleged alterations of use-by dates on chickens. This latest scandal follows growing European concern about the state of food processing practices emanating from incidents including the Dutch egg insecticide contamination fiasco and recent FSA testing that showed how common food poisoning bug campylobacter was present within 50% of supermarket chicken products.

Sungard Availability Services has launched a mobile app designed to help businesses more efficiently manage and recover from an incident. Act with Assurance integrates with the provider's Assurance software platform to provide a more interactive, efficient way to manage business continuity.

At the risk of paraphrasing Mark Twain (‘reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’), the BIA will become an integral part of a wider solution, not standing in glorious isolation. Already, the vast majority of our new clients are embracing the single entity approach to BC management using software, rather than having separate documents.

The business landscape is more unpredictable than ever. Wildly changing external factors including geopolitical risks, regulatory change, technological innovation and consumer sentiment and unrest are more forcefully shaping how businesses act. This is driving the acceleration towards more holistic risk and compliance management. The two functions can no longer be siloed, but instead pushed as a single operation that can be used by upper management to make informed decisions

Today is Black Friday, and that means bargains. For retailers, it means big customer service and revenue pressure. To conquer the annual onslaught, and remain relevant and desirable throughout the shopping year, the onus is on retailers to deliver an intuitive, connected experience for consumers.