There are no guarantees that all your years in business will be smooth. You might encounter business emergencies that threaten to undo all your hard work. While these challenges can be tricky to navigate, they don’t have to catch you by surprise. Have a plan for managing them if they arise, and your business may have no problems weathering any storm headed your way. Take note of these tips for managing business emergencies for continuity below:
1. Have a Funding Plan
If the worst should happen and you can’t cover your business’s bills or support yourself or your employees due to an unexpected event, it pays to have a funding plan. For example, you might ensure your personal bills are paid through a payday lender like My Canada Payday and seek out an emergency business finance option for your business.
Many emergency business loans may be suitable for your unique needs, such as business credit cards, invoice discounting, and overdrafts. While you may hope never to need to put your funding plan into action, you may see the value in having one as a ‘just in case’ measure.
2. Develop An Emergency Response Plan
You don’t always know how you’ll cope in an emergency. These situations can sneak up on us quickly, leaving us with very little time to form a plan to respond to them. Fortunately, you don’t have to wait until disaster strikes before you create a plan. You can develop an emergency response plan well in advance. Should you ever need to put it into action, it’ll be ready and waiting for you.
However, it’s important to note that one response plan may not suit all emergency situations. Consider creating separate ones depending on the emergency. For example, the details in a response plan for a cyber incident or supply chain disruption may vastly differ from those in a plan for a natural disaster.
3. Identify Risks
You won’t always be able to prevent business emergencies. For example, no business owner can stop a storm from ripping through their store and disrupting their supply chain. However, there can be value in identifying risks related to potential threats that may put you out of business if given half a chance. When you know about the various risks facing your business, you can put plans in place to potentially reduce their impact. For example, if you know your cyber protection software is old and outdated, this can put you at risk of a cyber-attack. Your plan to reduce the impact might involve updating your software and tightening other cybersecurity measures.
4. Create a Communication Strategy
It’s easy to feel like you’re in the dark when a major event causes an emergency in your business. The right people may not get contacted, or people who need to learn information may not know who to contact. That’s why creating a communication strategy in advance can be so important. This plan can outline who needs to be contacted, by whom, and which avenues to use.
Make a plan for your employees, customers, suppliers, and other people’s involvement in your business’s operation. Consider using a range of communication channels like text messages, phone calls, social media, and email. It can also be important to have one consistent method for team communication. Having a communication plan may ensure everyone who needs to know important information in an emergency will be well-informed promptly.
5. Ensure Adequate Insurance
Business insurance might be the last thing on your mind when you’re planning for business emergencies, but it should be among the first. A number of insurance packages may provide financial relief in the event of a serious incident that threatens to ruin you financially.
Review the insurance policies you already have and research additional coverage, like business interruption insurance. This insurance type replaces lost business income if you can’t open your business temporarily due to a policy-covered loss. The more insurance policies you have in place, the more financial protection you may enjoy in the event of an emergency.
6. Organize a System Backup
Cybercrimes can take a significant toll on businesses. Many businesses can be so financially affected that they close their doors for good. Alongside having robust cybersecurity measures in place, you may also like to organize a system backup with an IT service provider. Should data loss occur, you can contact your service provider to access your backup data and be back up and running before long.
Business emergencies can easily push business owners to the brink of needing to close their doors. However, that doesn’t always have to happen if you have sound plans and processes in place. If your business has a step-by-step guide to follow in an emergency, you may find it easier to navigate tough times and get back on track.
