This is an exciting year to be living in Britain, the Olympics will be here for the first time since 1948 and the country will also be celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Come summer we can expect to have a real buzz around the country as the world’s eyes turn to us. However, without wishing to sound like a kill joy, the influx of a predicted 9 million visitors and the additional public holidays will undoubtedly cause some disruption along the way.

For firms based in and around London, but not exclusively, transport is likely to be a challenge from June to September. Arranging business meetings, events, or simply getting to work in the city is going to cause many headaches, so companies should be putting in contingency plans now to help manage this inevitable challenge.

Despite the potential pitfalls, a recent survey from BT called Race to the Line showed UK businesses are worryingly underprepared. Of the 1,200 UK business leaders surveyed in the report, the vast majority of private sector companies (85 percent) expected disruptions, compared to just 65 percent of public sector organisations. 40 percent of the respondents expected staff to struggle getting to work, and while most planned to allow some form of flexible working to offset the impact of this, 30 percent said they currently had no plans in place to deal with the impact of reduced staff.

Taking a view of the Canadian preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the report demonstrated that the forward planning required to ensure businesses can maintain their productivity during this time should not be underestimated. The survey included comments from Vancouver based businesses and claimed that “In particular they wished that they had prepared better for reduced staffing levels when people couldn’t make it into work, but also for the disruption caused to their supply chain as their ecosystems experienced similar problems.”

The report also showed that SMEs are likely to be the hardest hit as these are the least prepared organisations. While in Vancouver companies spent 19 months preparing and still felt they wished they had started earlier, the British belief is that 3 months will be sufficient. This unpreparedness could be their undoing when then summer comes round. Additionally, if there is a sudden rush on services and equipment there could be a resulting issue with supply, and there is also a possibility that costs will therefore rise with demand.

Smart companies will be looking to assess what risk and impact they can foresee the summer’s events having on their business, and to make a swift review of their IT estates to ensure they will be able to maintain efficiencies during this time. It is crucial that employees will be able to access their work from a remote location to reduce the impact of difficult transport links. Ensure your employees have access to the telephone and internet, explore Cloud technologies and Unified Communications; but also get the policies and procedures in place so that employees are aware of the guidelines for remote working, and understand how they should behave.

There is a world of remote technologies that can help, but the important thing is planning and making sure that any action is not left too late. Otherwise you will endanger your business with unnecessary risk, such as missing client deadlines, creating added pressure on your team, and lowering productivity.

If you would like to speak to Trustmarque further about how to prepare your business for the upcoming celebrations, please contact 0845 2101 500 or email us.