by Nigel Hilton
When running a business, you’re certainly not likely to be thinking about which disaster is around the corner most of the time. We all want to believe that a crisis will never hit us, but the fact is that ignoring potential problems can only make them more dangerous, even if they seem unlikely. Here, we’re going to look at the steps you need to take to create an effective crisis management and disaster recovery plan for your business, and why you need to do it.
Do a risk assessment
First of all, before you know what you have to protect or find a backup for, you have to know what you stand to lose, and how you might stand to lose it. You need to identify the risks in your business. Most crisis management plans deal with equipment and IT failures and, as such, you need to consider each way your tech could fail. For IT, it could be due to malware, hacking, failure, internet access loss, and more. When talking about electrical equipment, then malfunction and power loss are some of the most common concerns. You need to look at the possibility of each risk and figure out how widespread and interruptive its impacts will be on your business’s core processes, often done with a risk assessment provider.
Have reserve capital at your disposal
Sometimes a crisis will hit and sometimes you will not have all of the resources to deal with it and keep your business up and running when it does. Especially if it’s one of the most costly crises out there. As such, you are likely to need a little extra reserve capital at your disposal to make use of only in the case of unexpected circumstances. Small business loans can help, but with a revolving line of credit at your disposal, you don’t need to worry about going through the steps of applying whilst that crisis is going on. It’s best to have the capital at the ready to use as soon as the crisis hits.
Have a backup at your disposal
When it comes to the majority of tech and equipment failures, being able to secure a backup, or having one at the ready, will be able to help you solve the majority of problems. For instance, when it comes to your IT, if there is a loss of internet connection, there are backup connections such as wifi dongles and hotspots your business could make use of. Similarly, it’s always wise to have a genset at the ready for any core equipment that could be affected by a power cut. The same goes for your data, too. Any business that relies on data but does not have a Cloud-based backup at the ready is leaving itself highly vulnerable.
Embrace flexibility
Remote working has been a trend that a lot of businesses and freelancers alike are beginning to rely a great deal upon. Many will attest that it often works to their advantage, rather than coming with the cost of productivity that you might expect. The work-from-home landscape is evolving to affect all organizations in all industries in all sectors. As such, it’s wise to have a virtual setup at the ready should your office be affected by something like internet loss or an internal network failure. This means not only using Cloud storage but also Cloud software that allows your team to do their work from home on the same tools they would use in the office and great communication/project management software that ensures everyone is on the same page.
Know who to call and when
Depending on the type of crisis you’re dealing with, you will have a responsibility or at least a need to tell certain people. The people whose work is directly affected will need to know, but if it’s a major crisis, then so might other stakeholders. For instance, if your business is hit by a data breach, you may be obligated by law to inform any customer or individual whose data may be affected by the breach. In some cases, this may mean that you have to deal with PR. Who is blamed doesn’t matter at this stage, simply reporting the information as accurately as possible to those who need to know.
You may not think you’re likely to be hit by a crisis any time soon. However, without a crisis management and disaster recovery plan, you can guarantee that the costs of dealing with one are going to be far higher than they need to.