4 Business Continuity Tips For When Disaster Strikes
If 2020 taught businesses anything, it’s that nothing is certain. At the start of the year, everything was looking fine and dandy. But by the end of it, we had the biggest recession in history on our hands, and many companies couldn’t even open their doors by law.
In this post, we take a look at some business continuity tips your business can deploy when disaster strikes. None of these are failsafe, but they will help you better manage situations as they crop up and get your company back on track.
Here’s what to do.
Make Remote Work Part Of Your Business Model
Given the impact of the pandemic, many companies are moving to an operating model that assumes disease outbreaks are here to stay forever. It sounds morbid – and it is – but science actually backs this up.
Think about how many severe outbreaks we’ve seen over the last twenty years. There were two other coronavirus outbreaks in 2003 and 2007, and then a bunch of other nasty epidemics, including Ebola, Zika and swine flu. The official site https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/zika-virus still recommends against travelling to some parts of the world.
Many disease experts believe that new pandemics will arrive with relative frequency. A new strain of flu, for instance, could lead to a pandemic similar to the Spanish flu of 1919.
Companies, therefore, need to operate in two “modes.” In one mode, they carry on with their regular in-person interactions, as before the pandemic. And then if another crisis strikes, they switch to a different setup which still allows them to trade if disaster strikes.
Ensure Backup Systems Are Ready
Pandemics, of course, aren’t the only disasters that can befall companies. Power outages can seriously affect them too.
Sites like https://www.procircuitinc.com/industrial-electrical/ talk about the importance of maintaining electrical circuitry. Companies need backup systems that allow them to keep essential servers and lighting online if the mains power goes out. Failing to do so could interrupt sales and lead to a loss of revenue.
Making sure that backup systems are ready to kick in is a great way to improve disaster recovery management. In many cases, it will be like nothing happened.
Create An Emergency Preparedness Team
An emergency preparedness team is a group of people in your business with the authority to respond proactively to every disaster that comes your way.
Each continuity event is unique, so there are no protocols here. Instead, the people in this team will have to make decisions on the fly to protect the company’s assets and support the bottom line.
How they do this will depend on the nature of your industry. The goal should be to keep staff safe and productive so that they can continue delivering value, even if things go dreadfully wrong at your end.
Track Your Processes
The last step is to track your emergency response process by testing it thoroughly. See how your team responds if there’s a power cut. Watch what happens if the servers go down. Make sure that you’re in a position to respond and pick yourself back up if something goes wrong.