Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing. It allows us to be wise after the event. With the benefit of hindsight it’s much easier to see something that now seems obvious. How often have you heard the words "it was an accident waiting to happen" after the accident has happened?

Effective risk management aims to make us wise before the event – to use foresight, rather than hindsight, to identify potential problems and prevent the accident, incident or disruption from occurring in the first place.

Hindsight may be said to be a wonderful thing, but in reality it’s a bit pointless. So don’t neglect the risk management element of your business continuity management programme. If you can develop a culture of foresight rather than hindsight, it’ll make your organisation more resilient and it might just mean that you never have to use your business recovery plans in anger.