The study by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) suggested British industry was ill-prepared for an emergency.

Fewer than half the companies surveyed feared terrorist damage.

And only one in six was concerned about the threat military conflict would have on their business.

The threats UK businesses feared most of were loss of IT capacity followed by loss of people and loss of site.

Fire risk and loss of skills were considered less important.

the survey also suggested businesses were failing to plan for potential disruption.

And too many were pre-occupied with the impact of a disaster on their IT systems, to the exclusion of other important factors.

"Only one in five organisations practise organisation-wide recovery while double this number limit it to IT," the survey said.

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