Prospective clients are keen to understand how Incident Ready Consulting can support them with their business continuity and crisis management issues.
Here are some of the most common questions with examples of how support has been provided.

Absolutely, we have supported more than a dozen organisations with this. Often Incident Management Plans do not reflect strategies deployed during COVID or the technologies now in use. Too often plans contain elements of policy and guidance and are not structured to follow the simple step by step approach needed to raise the alarm, assess impacts, mobilise the Incident Management Team, activate supporting plans and get in front of the problems. Nobody wants to respond following a 100+ page document!   Structuring business continuity and incident management information so that it is easy to locate and follow is essential. In addition to reviewing the Major Incident Management plan, we also review supporting procedures including Crisis Communications Plans, IT Major Incident Management and Disaster Recovery Plans, Estates and Security out of hours response.   With years of experience of managing incidents and developing simple plans, we can quickly review your current arrangements, identify how you actually respond in and out of hours, and refresh your plans to reflect your realities, including putting in place role based action cards, aide memoires and standard incident management meeting agendas. Organisations often then look for support to train up their incident response teams and rehearse them through realistic scenario based exercises so that they are familiar with arrangements and confident in their roles.

We love training up people and are skilled at pitching training to the right level based on the seniority and experience of the audience. In addition to face to face sessions, we can also offer online training courses. See our Training page (top menu) for course information and links to demo online versions.

We have designed and delivered a huge range of exercises and are confident we can meet your needs whether this is Safety Drills, a DeskTop exercise, a Command Post exercise, or live Multi-Agency exercise. Please see our Case Studies (top menu) and Exercise page (Also top menu) for the steps we take with you to design an exercise.

Please take a look at the Case Study (top menu) of how I supported the University of Aberdeen with this.

It is vital to ensure that your Business Impact Analysis is carefully focused and adds value. As a minimum I recommend prioritising the following areas as all areas of an organisation are typically dependent on them: Security (out of hours response), Estates, IT and Communications. I can provide tailored templates supported by guidance and training to ensure that the process brings out business intelligence and supports response planning.

We recently delivered a bespoke course for the Open University  - another satisfied client! “Justin came highly recommended on an industry forum, so we engaged him to design and deliver bespoke training for our business continuity leads, to develop their skills and confidence in exercising Business Continuity and Incident Response plans. The session was engaging and highly informative, with positive feedback from all attendees.  It is clear that Justin has a wealth of knowledge and experience – we would definitely use him again for future consultancy support.” ​ Caroline Abbot, Senior Manager, University Secretary’s Office, The Open University Please see our Training page (top menu) for details of a wide range of courses on offer. We are always delighted to design courses to meet exactly what you need.

As a qualified and experienced lead auditor to ISO 22301:2019 (Business Continuity Management Systems), I have personally led the design and implementation of BCMS and ran the audit process with the BSI to achieve certification. I have also helped organisations transition their systems to the most recent version of the standard and successfully led the University of Surrey to full certification to ISO 22301.

Having recently completed a detailed review for the University of Cambridge on behalf of their broker, Gallagher,, I am able to offer a robust insurance approved methodology to help you here. Please have a look at the Case Study (top menu) for further information on the methodology and results.

We love running these workshops with your in house teams covering off internal and external communications and PR!   In just a couple of hours of walking through the crisis communications response to an unfolding incident, it is possible to draw out a really clear picture of where there are gaps in preparedness, gaps in sign-off processes and in channels to reach audiences, including during cyber attacks. If your teams also need help formalising this into an up-to-date Crisis Communications plan, we are experienced in supporting that too.

I am an experienced international public speaker and presenter and able to bring a complex subject to life through stories and case studies. Let me know what you are looking for and when. Incident Ready Consulting offers a wealth of experience and can tailor support to meet your requirements.