There are many risks that can affect an organization's ability to continue their day to day biz and these can affect organization of all size across all sectors both directly and indirectly. Recent research conducted by London chamber of commerce reveals that over 70 % of small business in UK often do not consider the risk they are exposed to as well as do not have contingency and continuity plan in place to mitigate such risk.
More often than none, businesses are usually caught up with it this “it cant happen to us” syndrome and has even become a major challenge for businesses especially small and medium sized business in developing strategies to protect them against the risk that challenge their continuity. In the past organisations have witnessed and experience crisis event that had severe impact of their critical assets. You might say my business is not exposed to any disaster or risk event. This is absolutely incorrect, the truth and the fact is all business at some point will face events that challenge their continuity. However, let me remind you that crisis is no respecter of the size of your business, when it strikes, it has both micro and macro impact on your business. The dynamic and ever changing environment where we operate has called for a more strategic consideration for business leaders to begin to plan for the unexpected. Lack of preparation for the unexpected event can severely disrupt the operation, continuity, and effectiveness of your business as disabling events can come in all shapes and varieties. They can vary from the more common calamities like hard drive corruption, building fires or flooding to the rarer, yet more severe and often longer lasting disruptions that can occur on a city-wide or even national basis; events such as disruptions in transport (bomb attack, oil crises, metro shut-downs, transport worker, strikes, etc.), infrastructure weakening from terrorist attacks, or even severe loss of staff due to illness like a pandemic flu. All of these strike a blow at an organization's struggle for business continuity.
For small businesses the impact of the above mentioned and even lesser disasters can hit much harder. For example, unexpected non-availability of key workers alone could be catastrophic, potentially causing as much disruption to business continuity as technological hardship, especially if it occurs during the height of the company's busy season. If only one person is trained to do particular and/or essential tasks, their unexpected absence can severely disrupt productivity and efficiency.
Drawing inference from the case of Noah in the Bible, he and his family were able to survive the disastrous event of the flood that took over the entire world, not basically because he was a child of God, but because he was proactive and planed for the flood. This holds true in planning for the unexpected even though, Noah had expected the flood, but when it will happen he did not know. He was able to survive because of his pro-activeness to the anticipated event.
The question for business leaders today is what steps or strategies are you putting in place to protect your business, your investments and business reputation?
Think about this. It is better late than never, because risk is inevitable for all business. Thus, developing strategies for your business continuity will prepare your business for any potential disaster, crisis or incident and help ensure that you will be able to maintain continuity of your business practices, and reduce or even possibly remove the impact such calamities could have on your business. Not only will your data, hardware, software, etc., be better protected, but the people that compose your organization will be better safeguarded; financial losses and reputation damage will be avoided. In addition, you and your employees will be informed and rehearsed as to what actions to take to immediately start the recovery process and ensure business continuity if disaster strikes.
With so many potential business disasters and disruption in the hanging and dynamic environment businesses operates today, it seems unwise not to take actions to prepare for and try to prevent the devastating impact of any catastrophe.
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