Business & Economy
Hampshire Ambassadors Newsletter - August 2009

New Hampshire Business Directory

The 2009/10 Hampshire Business Directory and Guide is now available for purchase. The listing, produced for the County Council by Burrows Communications Ltd, contains verified details of over 8,000 businesses in the county and includes information on the type of business, numbers of employees, turnover and export markets.

The new Directory is in a different format from before, as the County Council is mindful of the economic impact of printing large hard copy directories; the Directory is now a brochure, providing key information on services available to Hampshire business (and a selection of entries), and enclosed CD-ROM containing the main directory data.

To order a Hampshire Business Directory online, please visit www.hants.gov.uk/shop or visit www3.hants.gov.uk/business/advice-information/edo-bizdirectory.htm for more information and an order form.

Business Continuity Planning

Business continuity means being able to continue delivering your organisations most critical services in the event of a disruption affecting your resources or infrastructure. It means having a pre-prepared plan for continuing and restoring services when such a disruption occurs. A critical activity is one which has to be performed in order to deliver your key business services and has to be recovered within a defined timeframe i.e. the longer you cannot deliver it , the worse the impact and/or implications for your organisation. Business Continuity is not just about recovering your IT applications but about delivering all your critical services even when your IT is not available.

Even the best response plan cannot prevent disruption, but services with a business continuity plan are more likely to be able to continue serving the community through a time of crisis than those services caught unprepared. Experience shows that services with contingency plans will recover their activities more quickly because they will have prepared and exercised an appropriate response in advance. However business continuity and incident management arrangements cannot be considered reliable until exercised. Exercising your plans will help develop teamwork, competence and confidence

How you can start to safeguard your Business in 5 steps

•Step 1 - Identify your key services

•Step 2 - Identify the most important activities that are required to deliver them and the timeframe for recovery i.e. how long can you go before the impact of non delivery has serious implications

•Step 3 - Identify the minimum levels of resource required to keep those critical activities going in terms of people, premises and IT / hard data requirements

•Step 4 – Identify the most likely risks that might stop you delivering that service and identify actions that may mitigate the severity

•Step 5 – Record your findings in a business continuity plan

Further information and assistance follow the link to: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/lrf-faqs/epfaq4.htm

Or for further information contact Mark Donlon, Hampshire County Council's Business Continuity Manager on

01962 826063 or e-mail mark.donlon@hants.gov.uk mark.donlan@hants.gov.uk


Events in August

Please note these are not Hampshire Ambassador events.

For a full listing of business events happening across the county please visit the

Business Events Pages of the Hampshire County Council Website, for leisure events visit www.hants.gov.uk/events

Sunday 16th August from 11am - Walk for the Trust

10 kilometres sponsored walk in aid of the Prince's Trust in the beautiful Royal Victoria Country Park, near Southampton. All money raised will go to helping young people in Hampshire.

Friday 21st August - “Any Questions”with Jonathon Dimbleby at The Museum of Army Flying,

Middle Wallop, Stockbridge, SO20 8DY

Tickets for those wishing to attend, become a part of the audience and perhaps take part in the debate, are available ( free ) from the Museum. t.01264 784421 www.flying-museum.org.uk

Hampshire Wildlife Trust

As a charity dedicated to wildlife conservation and environmental education, support from our members is vital to the work of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.

The Wildlife Investor scheme was launched at the beginning of 2008 with the aim of encouraging local businesses to join the Trust as business members.

The Trust have now announced that the Matchtech Group have become their 50th business member and many Hampshire Ambassadors including the Olive Consultancy and Sleepbreeze Ltd are also members.

The scheme is open to all types and sizes of companies in the county, to find out more contact Peter Hutchings on peterh@hwt.org.uk or 01489 774400 or visit http://www.hwt.org.uk/pages/corporate-support.html