Businesses should prepare for floods and bad weather

Floods, snow, volcanic eruptions – businesses across the country are already facing disastrous consequences as rising water and the threat of the cold weather looks to cause chaos, disrupt transport and halt companies in their tracks.

Britain’s businesses have seen what a cloud of ash and severe snow can do to productivity and the weather is not holding back as flooding hits across the country once again.

But business owners are being urged to take action to protect themselves and ensure that they can lessen the impact of the bad weather.

Chris Pallett, of Telford-based Bespoke Computing, has overseen the set up of remote working facilities for Shropshire businesses that has been used all over Europe, the US and the Far East.

But he said the technology can be of great help to those businesses whose employees never leave the country but cannot always access the office.

He said: “Businesses that have staff working overseas use remote networking as a matter of course, but many businesses don’t realise the benefits of using it to prevent the loss of business when the bad weather hits.

“If it is already in place and the flooding or the snow hits and employees are unable to make it in it is not a problem – they can just work from home, or wherever they may be stranded!

“When the volcanic ash cloud left employees stranded abroad those with remote networking continued as usual whereas many other businesses suffered.

“Flooding can result in suffering for businesses across the board and results in huge costs if the offices themselves are hit – with a loss if productivity on top of that some may never recover.”