Resilience is critical in any business because disasters happen at any time. Business continuity strategies will help you weather these storms.
The disasters can include data breaches, crippling lawsuits, fraud, and natural calamities. Overcoming them sets you apart from your competitors. Did you know that 25% of small and medium-scale businesses close after a significant storm hits them?
Implementing business continuity strategies means that growth in spite of these calamities is possible. Here are 7 business continuity tips you need to know. Apply them to your company as soon as possible.
- Identifying Potential Threats to Your Business
The likelihood that a specific disaster will happen differs from place to place. For example, sinkholes cause more damage to office buildings in Florida than they do to similar structures in Nevada.
That means assessing risks to your business based on your location is an excellent idea. Another step in the right direction is considering other circumstances such as the nature of your company. For instance, e-commerce sites are more vulnerable to hackers than farm-based businesses.
- Having a Recovery Plan in Place
People respond differently to disasters. Some of them will shut down completely. Others will run as soon as they see trouble. Businesses continuity under these circumstances is impossible.
Therefore, creating a roadmap to guide the actions of your employees during chaotic moments is an excellent idea. This roadmap encourages constructive reactions to disasters because it reduces the level of panic among your staff members, clients, and suppliers.
In fact, calmness will prevail despite the calamity because they know that you have a plan in place to deal with it.
- Creating Backups and Contingency Plans
Critical files in your business include financial statements, legal documents, and databases containing your clients’ information. Unfortunately, losing all of them in a fire, cyber-attack, or an internal act of sabotage among other causes is possible.
Business continuity without these files is a challenging task because they are critical to your function as an enterprise. Fortunately, backup systems exist. Store them in these systems and then retrieve them later if a disaster leads to the destruction of your current files.
- Having the Necessary Equipment in Place
Preparing for a disaster takes time. Unfortunately, some calamities happen without warning. That means they can catch you off-guard with substandard equipment to deal with them or no equipment at all.
Remember, business continuity is a challenging exercise if the mitigation of a disaster is difficult or impossible. Avoiding these challenges is possible if you buy the right equipment at the right time. Purchase them as soon as possible so that you can reduce the impact of a disaster on your business.
- Establishing a Recovery Team
Companies have various departments including marketing, finance, and procurement. Others are production and human resource management. Establishing a recovery team from each of these departments is critical to guaranteeing the continuity of your business during a crisis.
More specifically, this team ensures that your business processes continue despite the challenges that you are facing. Select team members who have a high level of professionalism in addition to an unwavering dedication to you and your company.
- Training Your Staff
The most valuable resource any business can have is its staff. In fact, staff members are your most useful partners when it comes to ensuring business continuity. Train them well, and they will protect the enterprise, its reputation, and its property.
For example, talk to them about their interactions with the press when your business is facing a public relations disaster. Educate them on protecting company data through computer security protocols. Teach them safety procedures so that they can save themselves and the business when calamity strikes.
- Revise Your Emergency Response Systems Regularly
What is the use of having elaborate systems in place to mitigate disasters when these systems fail during emergencies? Revise them regularly so that they can help you and your staff when disaster looms over your business.
For example, make sure that your fire extinguisher works. Conduct mock drills as well to remind staff members of their roles and duties during an emergency. Finally, revise your recovery team regularly adding, removing, or replacing people based on their availability and their level of expertise. Their level of dedication to the business matters as well.
Leona is part of the content and community team at Specialty Fuel Services – providers of emergency fuel continuation services, in locations affected by catastrophic events.