A frightening 50% of UK businesses have been the victim of some sort of cyberattack over the last 12 months, and 88% of those were SMBs.
According to a survey from Databarracks, which questioned over 400 IT professionals, just 30% of small businesses have a business continuity plan in place, compared with 54% of medium-sized, and 73% of large businesses. The research also revealed that more than 40% of smaller firms had no intention of implementing a plan of any kind in the coming year.
Yet any firm, regardless of size, can be the victim of a cyberattack that can effectively shut a business down or do serious damage to its reputation, particularly if the situation is handled badly. The key to surviving any kind of attack on a business is to be prepared and have a strategy in place to keep the business running, even if the odds are stacked against you.
In a session at ChannelCon EMEA; Rahme Mehmet, founder of TechComms, and Paul Mitchell, founder of Continuity Through Planning, explained how crisis management needs to be a fundamental part of every business strategy.
From Compliance to Competitive Advantage
Business continuity and crisis management are often seen as defensive measures, but when done well they can actively strengthen customer trust and differentiate a business from its competitors. Organisations that can demonstrate preparedness, clear communication plans and decisive leadership during disruption are far more likely to retain clients and win new ones. In an environment where outages, cyber incidents and reputational threats are increasingly visible, resilience itself becomes a signal of professionalism and long‑term stability.
“What is business continuity planning?” Mitchell asked. “It is about looking at all those threats that can impact your business. We look internally and externally for those, how they occur and how they are going to impact your business. The threat of disruption is not a matter of if, but when.”
Built around four core pillars, the programme aims to strengthen business resilience, protect brand reputation and client confidence, turn preparedness into a business advantage, and be prepared for crisis response with strategic decision-making.
“Resilience is no longer optional. It is no longer something that is a ‘nice-to-have’ and maybe your board will ask you to do it,” Mitchell said. “It is actually something your customers are going to be asking for. And if you are going to spend the time and effort building that resilience, you need to test it and make sure everyone in your organisation is aware that you have plans in place, and they know what their roles within that plan are.”
Mehmet explained that managing a crisis can be boiled down into a five-step plan:
- Identify: Pinpoint the crisis and how that is going to impact you and your business
- Assess: Determine which stakeholders are going to be impacted as a result
- Align: Look at values and principles and make sure that your response lines up with those values and principles
- Evaluate: Take a look at what options you have and which ones to take
- Decide: Take action and continuously communicate what you are doing both internally and externally
“We would always recommend having a prepared strategy for different scenarios, as every scenario can be different,” Mehmet said. “There could be a small, large or huge number of people impacted, and depending on what the incident is, we need to decide on how we communicate to those audiences.
“Before in the PR world we had the ‘golden hour,’ but now because of social media this is more like 15 minutes,” she said. “Part of the role of containing a crisis is not allowing negative public attention on your company, people and brands. You need to lead with transparency and speed.”
Ultimately, cyberattacks and other disruptive events are no longer rare, unpredictable emergencies—they are an inevitable part of doing business in a digital world. Companies that take continuity and crisis planning seriously are better equipped not just to survive these incidents, but to emerge from them with their reputation intact. By embedding resilience into everyday operations and rehearsing responses before a crisis hits, organisations of any size can move from reactive damage control to confident, transparent leadership when it matters most.
ChannelCon EMEA │ 9-10 November │ London │ Register Now
Save the date: 9-10 November 2026 at the Park Plaza Westminster London
