Business continuity is essential for any firm in order to mitigate unforeseen circumstances.

Robert Rutherford, managing director of QuoStar Solutions, told the Daily Telegraph that companies should have a structured plan in place.

"Downtime, however it rears its head - fire, flood, power outages, transport strikes [or] hardware failure - will hurt your business financially," he added.

Organisations need to make sure they have business insurance, or else they could face financial ruin.

Mr Rutherford thinks it is a good idea for firms to identify all possible risks, so they can develop a solution to them.

The expert went on to note businesses should be testing their plans with great regularity, as they have to be sure they will work if called upon.

This applies to both the IT and human parts of the scheme, as this way everyone should be aware of what their responsibilities will be if a problem occurs.