Be Ready for business
The government's Be Ready campaign is written for households. This is the business version.
Three days of water, three days of food and a wind-up radio is sensible advice at home. A firm also has stock to keep cold, staff to pay, customers waiting and a building to reopen safely. This page is the firm's version of the same campaign, set against the official restoration curve for a national power outage.
The campaign, in plain terms
On 22 October 2026 the UK government launched Be Ready, a three-year programme about how to prepare for disruption. The public-facing advice is short and sensible. Three days of water, three days of food, a wind-up radio, and a plan for what you do when the power goes off.
The framing is the household. The campaign works with a wide range of partner organisations, some of them businesses, and there is more than one kit list in circulation. But there is no business version of the guidance, because the campaign's business page does not exist. The link is dead.
That is the gap this page fills. A firm cannot run for three days on a tin of beans and a radio. It needs to know what happens to its stock, its staff, its customers and its building, and it needs to know what happens in the first four hours, because that is where most of the damage is done.
One thing to be clear about before you read on. This is Fleur Lamont's own work. We are not part of the campaign, the campaign has not asked us to write it, and nothing here is official campaign guidance.
The official restoration curve
You cannot plan around an average outage, so plan around the clock instead. The National Risk Register 2026 sets out the national power outage restoration curve. These are the official figures.
Within two days
About 60% of demand restored.
Days 3 to 4
The long middle. Reconnection carries on, but pockets stay dark.
Day 5 to 6
All customers restored.
Beyond day 7
Full and stable power.
Read that as a firm and it gives you three windows. The first four hours, the first day, and the first week. That is the shape of the problem.
The ten digital and operational checks are on the guide. This page covers what the household advice misses for a firm.
Three ways to start
Depending on where your firm is right now.
The free guide
Ten checks, one page. Download it now and work through it yourself.
Download the guideThe resilience session
Ninety minutes on a call or on-site. Work through the checks on your kit and leave with the answers on paper, plus your firm's cadence for the first 4 hours, 24 hours and week.
Book a sessionThe risk assessment
The full European Technology Risk Assessment on your systems, data and suppliers.
Ask about a risk assessmentWhat the household kit list does not cover
A household loses a few days of convenience. A firm loses stock, pay, customers and its good name. None of the following is in the campaign's household advice, and all of it decides whether the firm is still trading in a week.
Cold chain and stock
Three days of drinking water does not hold a chiller at temperature. A cafe, a pharmacy, a butcher, a lab, a restaurant: the stock has a temperature, a time limit and a value, and when the power goes the clock starts.
Staff
People cannot get to work, they are not earning, and they are worried. Pay, travel, who comes in and who stays at home, and what happens to the rota when nobody can reach the building.
Customers
A shop with a dead card machine, a practice whose phone line is down, a customer waiting on a delivery. What you promised, what you can still deliver, and when they hear it from you.
Coming back safely
Is the water safe? Is the stock spoiled? Are the electrics safe to energise? Who signs the building off? A good part of the damage done after an outage is done by people going back in too early.
That is the difference between a household being ready and a firm being ready.
Where to start
Three ways to work on it. Take the first one, then decide.
The free guide
Ten things to check on one printable page, done in an afternoon. Free, no sign-up.
The resilience session
Ninety minutes. The ten checks worked through on your kit. You leave with one page of answers, your firm's cadence for the first 4 hours, 24 hours and week, a backup restore to run yourself, and who to ring when the till stops.
The risk assessment
The European Technology Risk Assessment on your systems, data and suppliers, with a written assessment you own.
The guide covers the ten checks at breadth; this page goes deeper on power. The session is for the firm that wants the answers on paper. The assessment is for the organisation that has to answer a board, an insurer or a customer.
Know what your first week actually looks like
Bring your questions to a ninety-minute session and we work through the ten checks on your own kit: what runs on battery and for how long, what you would lose and how you would prove it, and what has to be checked before you reopen. You leave with the answers, a backup restore to run yourself, and the list of who to ring when the till stops.