A business owner realizes the importance of having a disaster preparedness plan. It is important to plan ahead on what steps to take and what resources to have available after a disaster is critical for business survival.
Disasters come in many different forms and some are specific to the type of business you are in. Fires, earthquakes and floods are disasters that can affect any business, but there are some disasters that are more damaging to your type of business and those must be considered when assessing risks. Assessing all the risks and weighing the effects each can have on your business will help you develop a plan to address them.
Once all the risks have been assessed, key business functions must be recognized and prioritized. What are the areas of the business that are most critical to continued operation. Are there interdependencies within the business operation that require one part to be operating before another area can operate? This is where having good business insurance can get you back in operation as soon as possible. Having critical operations insured can be the difference between a successful recovery or a continued disaster that could lead to financial ruin.
After you have covered all the basis in developing your disaster preparedness plans there is on more step that must be done. But no plan can be relied upon until it has been tested. When your plans are developed it must be part of the process to test them out. This is very much like a rehearsal for a show with each member of your team playing their part. Walking through each step of your disaster recovery plan will be the only way to find out if there are flaws or if something has been left out. Finding out if there are any mistakes now is better than finding out during and actual event.
