All businesses need to have some formal procedures in place in the event the unforeseen occurs.
Businesses must have an adequate recovery plan in order to ensure the continued survival of the company for the owners, staff and customers.
Here’s a short checklist
Be prepared
First and foremost have adequate insurance; it doesn’t take much to review it with your broker.
Put together a list of key stakeholders with contact details that can be accessed. We all have smartphones so create a directory. Better still use dropbox or Google drive where key staff can access the information.
Complete regular back-ups in the cloud; and check they work
Response
It’s difficult to plan a response if one can’t design endless scenarios. It’s probably not a useful exercise anyway.
The ability to respond has two elements: short-term and long term. Look at the situation and decide what can be done to minimise the damage immediately and what resources are needed, available and within your means.
Recovery
This is the longer term response, getting the business back to the position it was prior to the event.
Often when short-term and long-term objectives are mixed chaos ensues.
Mitigation and prevention
In an ideal world this should be the first priority but life’s not like that and generally under Health and Safety rules most of this should have been covered, no matter what industry.
A final thought, there are always annual events, some good and some not so. Just because a particular situation hasn’t occurred before doesn’t mean the resources are not available. There is always help at hand.
Niall O’Driscoll FCMA
OD Business Advisors and Accountancy Services
Business Accountant 