Preparing a Business Continuity or Emergency Plan takes time and effort and requires some investment. In my previous post, I provided a list of 10 steps small businesses can take which do not require any cash investment.
In this post and the remainder of the series, I’ll cover in some detail the process of preparing a Business Continuity or Emergency Plan. Some parts of this process will require an investment as well as some effort. So, why do this?
- According to the Institute for Business and Home Safety, an estimated 25 percent of businesses do not reopen after a major disaster.
- OSHA requires that businesses with 10 or more employees have a written emergency plan.
- Dependency on computer technology makes recovery more complex, and therefore, makes planning more important.
- Preparedness improves the chance that a company can recover, including recovering financial losses, market share losses, as well as equipment and inventory.
- Being well prepared facilitates compliance with regulatory requirements.
- Being well prepared helps companies protect employees.
- Being well prepared improves business security and enhances its credibility with employees, customers, vendors, and investors.
- Preparedness may help reduce insurance costs.
Finally, it is not easy to build a successful business. And it is all too easy to fail. All businesses should take the simple steps we’ll discuss here as a means to protect what they have worked so hard to build.
In my next post, I’ll discuss budgeting for the project.
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 5:14 am
“Preparedness may help reduce insurance costs.”
On that point, some insurance companies offer reduced premiums for clients who use an online backup service. It may help if you identify which insurance companies in your market do this an at what level. These savings can have a great impact on the cost of online backup for the client and as a consequence make your service a more attractive option.
John