The Ever-Changing Risks of Business Continuity
As seen in Sterling Insurance Group’s Summer 2018 Risk & Business Magazine. Flip through the whole magazine online by clicking here. Want a copy mailed to you directly? Contact Sterling Insurance Group Marketing Manager, Joan Giffels: jgiffels@sterlingagency.com
What is Business Continuity?
Most business owners know what “business continuity” is, even if they don’t know the formal term for it. Basically, business continuity is the way a business can maintain their core functions during or after some kind of interruption of normal operation. Beyond that, there are two things worth bringing up: Generally, people think of interruptions only in terms of disasters like floods, storms, or other natural disasters and there are exponentially more ways your business could face an interruption than disasters.
Learn to Adapt
The world of business continuity is constantly changing. There are more threats now than there ever have been in the past, and the number is growing larger every single day. Disasters are just the tip of a very deep iceberg.
Here are some questions to get you thinking:
- What would happen if the computer systems were hacked and we lost all of our records?
- What if a key employee becomes sick and isn’t able to work for months?
- What if we lose a key vendor?
- How would the business continue to function if we completely lost power or access to one of our primary production facilities?
Preparation 101
So how should you begin to prepare, as a business owner, for so many issues? Create a business continuity plan to act as your playbook. Forming a business continuity plan boils down to 5 basic steps:
- Build a risk assessment team
- Assess the risks your business faces
- Analyze your operations to determine the most critical concerns to deal with
- Document your plan and keep it in a secure location (off-site, possibly in the hands of your insurance professional)
- Test the plan with dry-runs to see how it might hold up
Why Having a Plan in-place Helps
These steps are just a rough outline, each will require a significant amount of work. With that being said, the work is well worth the time and effort when considering the alternative. Regardless of what kind of interruption your business may face one day, having a plan in place to deal with it ahead of time is essential. Without one, you and your employees could be left running around like the metaphorical headless chicken that comes up so often.
Do you have a business continuity plan? How about your insurance, is it covered as well?
The time to sit down with a professional is now, not later on after something has already happened. Fortunately, we here at Sterling have some proprietary products specifically designed for this purpose and professionals on our team who have been dealing with business continuity for years. Contact Brandon Horrocks at 586-685-0125 or bhorrocks@sterlingagency.com and let’s get your planning started.
Want a copy of Sterling Insurance Group’s magazine mailed to you directly? Contact Sterling Insurance Group Marketing Manager, Joan Giffels:
-jgiffels@sterlingagency.com
-(586) 685-0137
