Planning to deal with any disaster or adversity doesn’t sound appealing but nowadays, the advancement in technology and repeated incidences of natural as well as man made disasters has made it very crucial to have a plan in hand.
Natural disasters can be any unforeseen situation like fire or flooding, infrastructure failure, or ransomware infection that can make you shut down your business if you don’t have a strategy. Also, the disruption in a digital system like cyberattacks as well as viruses or malware, power failure or telecommunication failure can interrupt your business especially if you are an online company and have all your data in systems.
So here are 6 most essential business continuity tips to redeem your business in case of such minor or catastrophic disasters.
- Business Continuity Plan
Business continuity plan helps a company to continue their business and to redeem the business in case of any such unfortunate incident. And in order to develop a plan, you need to identify potential risks and threats that can affect your business at any point, and measuring the possible outcome of such risks.
After that, you can implement steps to save yourself from such incidences like backing up your data, making up a team, and training of the team. You also need to test those procedures with mock situations and ensure you update your plan regularly.
- Business Impact Analysis
You should have impact analysis of your business prepared as it will help you analyze which business departments, sites or functions are needed to recover. You should carry a complete analysis of your information, sites, and employees to estimate the financial and operational harm caused to your company in case of any disaster.
You should also be aware of the connection and interdependency of different departments of your business so that you can make strategies to keep your crucial departments operational. This analysis will provide you with important information to establish priorities and recovery time frame of your continuity plan.
- Recovery strategies
Damage to the office, equipment issue, or IT disruption can impact the business and cause financial loss. Recovery strategies are the alternate ways to keep your business operational even at a minimal level. You need to analyze your resources like people, buildings and machinery, supplies, and IT data to identify loopholes.
These strategies can involve improvising the office environment in case of infrastructure failures like setting up an office in other building or unaffected side of the facility. You can use telecommuting, entering into a contract with the third part, or developing a partnership or agreement.
- Recovery Team
Develop a disaster recovery team that would be responsible for the emergency situation and get them trained. Select highly talented, competent, and senior staff from every branch and main departments of your company. Make them in charge of any emergency and implementation on business continuity plan. Every individual should be assigned a clear role and has to be responsible for their tasks and responsibilities.
Keep them involved in making business continuity plan and make them familiar with their responsibilities through repeated testing so that they can perform swiftly under pressure.
- Basic Emergency Dealing Strategies
While covering the important aspects of emergency management, you should also keep in mind the basic and minor disaster recovery items that would be of immediate help in minor issues and save you from a serious disruption. Make sure that you have working fire extinguishers in every room. Invest in getting your staff trained for first aid and CPR as this can be of great help in danger as well as in general.
Also, keep automated external defibrillation unit and train your staff for its use. Always keep your first aid kit up to date with every essential accessory. Install an emergency alert system that can warn you in case of fire. Every member should have an emergency contact number list and also of other staff members. Keep your emergency exits functional and clear and every employee should know the drill of the evacuation plan.
- Relax
Last but not least, stay calm and composed. Getting panicked over the problem can only make it worse. Also, it conveys a negative message to your employees. Your worry and anxiety also would affect their performance negatively and can ruin your plan. If you stay relax and focused, you would be able to think about the business continuity and other disaster management plans clearly.
Your execution of the plans would be more clear and confident and you can tackle the situation with great ease. To relax, talk to a loved one, go through all the planning that you have done to tackle such situation and let things go in a flow.
Following these steps can greatly help you to deal with disastrous situation efficiently and effectively. These investments can benefit you significantly in the long run so don’t hesitate to hire a business continuity consultant, getting your staff trained and equipping your office with all necessary disaster management equipment.
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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.
