Is your Business Prepared for a Disaster?
Batten down the hatches and nail down the door its going to be a rough one! Ok so I am being a bit dramatic but Hurricanes can cause some serious damage to your home and business. I was watching TV this weekend and saw on CNN that we have our first named storm. Alex is off the cost of Central America. Very close to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes go boy, girl, boy, girl, etc.. Then ABCD right down the list. The next one on the list is Bonnie. I wonder how far down the list we go this year? Hopefully not too far. I hope none of them make landfall anywhere. But, ask yourself this, do you want to be the business owner that let Bonnie, Colin or Danielle ruin your business. I mean they are not even employees at your company.
What kind of damage can a hurricane do to your business well lets talk about the easy ones; physical damage, flooding or, even worse, death. Those are the ones that the insurance people really get their marketing dollars out for right? They scare you into buying. Well many times we dont think of the other issues likedisasters that strike that arent even in your area. Ask yourself this How would a hurricane or other disaster affect my vendors or customers? Lets take for example a clothing company in Summerville, SC that gets all of their fabric from a nice textile company in India. Well most of the time all of that gets shipped from overseas. The ports are very important to this company as this is how the fabric company gets their raw goods. What would happen if something happened to the ports or even worse to the company in India. Where would they get their raw materials from? I could go on and on about this. There are thousands of possible issues that go on. So how does a small business prepare themselves for a disaster of any kind? Well it all starts with planning. Here are a few quick tips on how to help you be more prepared.
1) Have a backup location to do business. If you know where you will setup shop when the disaster hits then it is one less thing to deal with.
2) Have the right insurance that will allow you to get set back up and going quickly.
3) Make sure your vendors have their own disaster recovery plan. You dont want them having a disaster be your disaster! Have backup vendors. If you cant then know the risk and try and protect yourself.
4) Backup your Data daily and test the backups monthly.
5) Write it all down. It sound simple enough but a one page document is much more effective place to start when you are in panic/task mode.
Remember the best way to survive a disaster is to plan, plan and plan. Then test, test and plan again when the tests fail. I truly hope that disaster never strikes you. But when it does knowing who to call and what to do will be your best allies in rising from the storm and being number one!
1 of 1 of 1 First | Prev | Next | Last |