Natural and man-made disasters are truly a matter of “when.” Luckily, good business continuity plans keep your company up and running despite unexpected interruptions. Whether your place of business experiences damage due to severe storms or flooding, a fire, or even mould, the best strategy is to have an existing disaster recovery plan in place and ready to implement—rather than scramble for a solution.
Business continuity planning consists of processes that help organizations prepare for disruptive events like fires, floods, blizzards, tornado damage, and smoke, and they are crucial to a company’s livelihood. Simply having a plan isn’t enough to lower the risks of downtime during a disaster. Instead, a business continuity plan demands ongoing attention and changes. An important aspect of business continuity is disaster recovery. By establishing a more in-depth approach to business continuity, companies can ensure less downtime and faster overall business resilience.
With extreme weather events cropping up more and more, it’s important that your business is prepared for just about anything. A good business continuity plan doesn’t just include disasters that have struck before—it also includes disasters that have never struck but are very much a threat. For instance, in our neighbouring United States, a lot of businesses outside California don’t normally consider earthquakes to be a threat. However, fault lines exist across the United States and Canada—and like it or not, earthquakes may happen where they’re least expected. That means your business could be at risk.
While Canada is known most for its blizzards, other disasters can certainly strike. And following a disaster, an estimated 40 percent of businesses never reopen. Luckily, this doesn’t have to be the case for your business. By preparing for disasters through making friends with a disaster recovery firm like Paul Davis, and better understanding things like your business’s insurance coverage, your company will be a lot better off than many of your local competitors should disaster strike.
When outlining your business continuity plan, be sure to take the following into consideration, as they may help you formulate a more solid plan:
- Have a thorough understanding and documentation of normal daily business practices and policies in the event these items are otherwise destroyed or forgotten. Keep these in the Cloud.
- Come to know what activities are necessary for continued operation. If you have offices located in other cities, ensure they’re prepared to take on additional duties in the event of a disruption.
- Research the threats that are most likely to affect your company.
- Look over your existing insurance policy. Talk to your insurance agent about the full length of your business coverage and any riders you may need for supplementation.
- Decide who within your organization will activate the plan.
- Always, always keep backups of important contacts, documents and files.
- Build a strong relationship with a disaster recovery firm like Paul Davis, who can help you get back into your building faster.
When your business discovers a strong need for a disaster recovery component to your business continuity plan, contact the experts at Paul Davis. Not only do we understand the business of cleaning up after a disaster strikes, we also believe in building relationships with business owners just like you—in the event something unexpected happens. We’re happy to speak with you about our services.