With the start of events just less than six months away, businesses that have not already done so are being urged to prepare now to avoid any potential disruption caused by the UK-hosted Olympic Games.

The Business Continuity Awards 2012 are now open for entries. The deadline for entries is 17 February 2012. The Business Continuity Awards recognise business continuity, security, resilience and risk professionals whose innovative strategies and industry savvy make them stand out above the rest.

The strong winds battering Scotland could be cooling the Scottish economy by around £100m, according to estimates by PwC. The risk consultancy says that, even if the aggregate cost of bad weather over the winter does not significantly impact national and regional GDP, daily productivity losses are a direct cost to business.

A study commissioned by FM Global shows that a natural catastrophe in China on the scale of the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami would have an even more severe impact on supply chains, given China’s critical role in global manufacturing.

The UK lags behind other industrialised countries when it comes to helping sick and injured staff back to work and will continue to do so until it develops a more effective approach to rehabilitation.

With less than nine months to go to the start of London 2012, over half of small and medium sized businesses expect no disruption to their operations as a result of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to a new report from Deloitte.

Risk experts are warning that non-compliance in the British haulage industry could have far-reaching consequences. The impact on the UK economy could be devastating with a downturn in productivity coupled with loss of sales for many millions of businesses that depend on road haulage.

The Cabinet Office and the British Standards Institution are today launching a new crisis management standard to help businesses cope with unexpected emergencies like civil unrest, employee deaths, corporate espionage or natural disaster.

While London remained relatively calm last night, other communities in the country found themselves the victims of yet more violence and disruption, with Birmingham the worst affected as three men are killed in a hit and run.

BT has launched a new authentication service aimed at providing high value or high risk online services to combat fraud and identity theft.

The thirteenth annual Business Continuity Awards took place last night at the Hilton on Park Lane, London. The Gala Dinner was hosted by comedian Kevin Bridges and attended by almost 600 guests.

SunGard Availability Services has announced the expansion of its Livingston Workplace Recovery Centre, increasing the volume of workplace recovery space for organisations within Scotland.

PwC has launched an advice manual to help businesses handle crisis situations, like the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami that recently devastated Japan.

Secure data centres and managed services provider, The Bunker has today launched a business continuity planning service.

The office is now firmly the main source of business disruption, with almost three times as many problems caused by workplace incidents such as power and communication failures than by technology failures involving hardware or other IT issues