Three quarters of Japanese companies have been affected by a string of natural disasters over the past two years, suffering damage to multiple parts of their operations including factories, office buildings, distribution networks and supply chains. According to a survey by Reuters, most of those companies suffered direct or indirect effects that lasted more than a week, while the impact lasted more than a month for a third of respondents.

The international standard for business continuity management systems has been updated. Replacing the 2012 version, ISO 22301:2019 ‘Security and resilience - Business continuity management systems - Requirements’ was developed by the ISO ISO/TC 292 Security and Resilience Technical Committee, and helps organisations protect against, prepare for, respond to, and recover when disruptive incidents arise.

A combination of geopolitical tensions, climate volatility and technological dependencies are contributing to a complex web of global supply chain pressures, the costs of which will build if they are not tackled now. This is the stark warning of a joint report from Airmic, AIR Worldwide, Gallagher, HDI, Lloyd’s and Sedgwick.

Climate change activist group, Extinction Rebellion is planning a week of demonstrations in the capital, focused mainly in and around Westminster. Businesses in the area are urged to consider continuity plans and contingencies -- particularly in relation to loss of access and especially relating to the safety of certain members of staff, such as those who are disabled or pregnant.

Engagement with C-level execs in business continuity planning is on the rise, but IT staff are still too heavily involved. This is according to the a study conducted by Databarracks, which asked over 400 IT decision-makers in the UK a series of questions surrounding critical issues relating to IT, security, disaster recovery and business continuity practices.

As domestic Brexit negotiations sway between intricate chess moves and matches of tiddlywinks, contingency planning for a hard Brexit is finally taking centre stage across both government and industry. Ant Gould looks at the latest plans

One of the world’s most significant commercial hubs has recently found itself at the centre of uncharacteristic unrest. Hong Kong’s future is hard to predict, but the business impact could have global implications. Martin Allen Smith reports

A recent study reveals that nearly two in five companies have lost business due to lack of cybersecurity expertise. The September 2019 study conducted by Forrester Consulting shows that cybersecurity performance is vital to achieve commercial success and a higher focus on security can make all the difference to business.

Fusion Risk Management has secured investment from Vista Equity Partners, supplying additional funding for the business continuity and risk management solutions provider to further scale its platform and accelerate product development. The investment in Fusion is made by Vista’s Endeavor investment fund, which is focused on mission-critical, high-growth enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses.

The Government has announced an inquiry into the causes of the large-scale electricity failure that affected large parts of the UK on Friday last week. Almost 1m people were affected by the outage across a large geographical area, which occurred after almost simultaneous problems at two power stations.