Disasters, both natural or unnatural, can impact your business in an unexpected and unforeseeable ways. You may think it will never happen to you or your business but disasters are called disasters for a reason. They are sudden, unpredictable and devastating. Therefore, it is prudent for any business to have some measures in order to counter the negative impacts of a disaster. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, bushfires and so on have some ways of early detection to allow businesses to make preparations and activate their emergency protocols. Having an emergency SOP in place in the event of a disaster is a smart move.
Here are 5 Easy Protocols to save your business from a natural disaster.
- Managers and Employees Contact List.
Making sure everyone is safe is the priority. With time being a critical factor, there isn’t much space for explanations and planning. Having pre-established SOPs such as a Codeword can activate these emergency protocols. For example, a pre-established codeword such as “Red Rabbit” to your managers will activate your managers to ensure the safety of all your employees, who are your most valuable resource. - Insurance Policies.
Needless to say, notify your insurance company immediately. Document the damages as much as possible for evidence to submit. The road to recovery could be long with post-disaster effects. Some damages may not be clearly seen immediately and could only be found after weeks or months. For example, bushfire damage could severely damage pipings. But these may not be evident or easily found unless a pipe bursts or if there are signs of damage. - Re-activate Critical Business Operations.
Following a disaster, some businesses can’t afford a down time and at the same time, unable to operate at full throttle yet. This can be chaotic and if not managed well, could mean the end of the business. Early identification of the most critical business operations and knowing the bare minimum of staff needed could be the key to quick recovery. Often deemed as running a skeleton crew, knowing and be able to get our most critical business operations up and running as soon as possible following a disaster could not only sustain your business but impress clients with your ability to manage your business. Enacting emergency policies such as remote working and pre-planned offsite temporary office are some ideas. - Alternate Operations.
- Disasters are often large scales and could affect many businesses similar to yours. Reaching to other businesses to pull together resources and manpower could serve as a precursor to earl recovery and community. You could even offer to exchange the services in exchange for theirs. The bartering system of old will always be effective in any era. For example, helping a cafe restore their IT website in exchange for lunch for your employees.
Backing Up Data.
In this day and age of technology, data is king. Some businesses dive head deep into the water following a disaster because of data lost. If your business is small, consider using a cloud service to backup some critical files such as customer records. Or having an offsite data facility (could be as simple as a USB containing your most critical files). For a medium and large businesses, these are common procedures.
What do you think of these 5 tips? Feel free to contact us at TRINIX for a FREE NETWORK ASSESSMENT of your IT infrastructure.