How to Survive a Business Disaster
Business disasters come in all shapes and sizes, while some of them are avoidable, others are not.
This guide explains how you can avoid some of the smaller disasters and recover from the larger ones.
What is a business disaster?
According to GOV.UK a business disaster is:
"any unwanted significant incident which threatens personnel, buildings or the operational structure of an organisation which requires special measures to be taken to restore things back to normal."
From this, you can see that you need to have special measures in place for your business to start running again as it normally would.
So, how do you prepare for a disaster?
There are eight steps involved when preparing for, and recovering from, business disasters.
Step 1. Think of the disasters that could affect you
While your mind might initially go to floods and fires that affect the structure of the building your business is based in, there are smaller disasters which could have a more lasting effect on your business.
These smaller disasters could be along the lines of your computer hard drive corrupting, meaning you lose the contact details for all of your customers and suppliers. It could also be not having access to the internet when you need to take card payments through a merchant device.
As part of this step, you need to consider not only what the disaster is, but also how it would affect your business. For example, would your business still be able to run? Are there steps you can take to prevent the disaster from happening in the first place?
Step 2. Plan for identified disasters
During this step, you need to think about what you would do if the disaster was to happen. How would you do it? When would you do it?
Remember, some of these measures are preventative. Take the example of the corrupt hard drive; you cant make a backup of it, and you cant restore data from it, which means you need to make a backup before the disaster happens.
Step 3. Raise the alarm
If you work for someone else, let them know that a disaster is imminent. If you run your own business (whether self-employed or a director), keep an eye out and be aware of everything that's happening around you in the business. If you have employees, listen to them if they try and raise a concern with you. Just be aware of everything at all times.
Step 4. Assess the damage after the event
Once the disaster has passed, assess any losses that may have occurred. See if your business can still run with what has survived the disaster.
If you had a power failure and lost all the business' data, were backups made in time? Is the equipment still functioning? Are the backups intact? If there's been a natural disaster, can you still access the office? If so, is any of the equipment or furniture salvageable? Can you stay in that office or will you have to move? Will it be a permanent or temporary move?
These are just some of the things you will have to consider if your business is to survive. Keep in mind that every business is different, these are just some examples.
Step 5. Notify any absent staff
Any staff present at the time will know what's happened and what is being done about it. However, absentees will not know this. Calls should be made and information given to staff to bring them up to speed. Remember, a business is a team effort, and the team should always be on the same page.
Step 6. Keep your business going
What do you need to do to get your business back up and running? You may need to contact your suppliers and either reduce or increase the amount of stock needed. You may also need to contact your insurance to start a claim (if necessary). Also, you should look at contacting your customers and let them know of any changes to the way that the business is now trading, e.g. a change of address, whether you're open as usual or taking a few months out from trading to get the business back up to its peak.
Step 7. Rebuild the essentials
You may find that there are things missing from your business that you need to have for it to run in the correct way. These could be things such as computer files or equipment, an office space or meeting notes.
Ask yourself, do I need these right now? If the answer is yes, then you'll need to find copies of the files, order new equipment, arrange alternative office space and ask clients for any copies of meeting notes they may have. You may not be able to get everything back right away, but you should be able to retrieve most of the information you need and you should be able to arrange for additional equipment through your insurer.
It's also worth remembering that if any copies of documents (such as bank statements or invoices) were destroyed or damaged, you will need to try and get copies of these, and may need to inform HMRC, too.
Step 8. Review the contingency plans
It's all well and good having contingency plans, but you'll never know if they work until a situation happens. So once you have been through something like this, go back over your plans with the mindset of "Did this work?", "Could I have done anything differently to be back up and running faster?" Go over your plans and amend them with the new information that you have.
Doing a dummy run of your plans can also be useful - regular fire drills, simulating power loss, checking and testing backups and more.
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