WHY PREPARE

When you identify your vulnerabilities and take steps to plan and prepare to reduce or eliminate them, you can help to limit or even prevent certain emergencies and disasters. 

Being prepared for an emergency can turn into a life-or-death matter. Being prepared for all potential threats to your employees’ safety can help you keep them safe and save lives. 

What is it about your specific business environment that keeps you up at night? What if you were victimized by a cyber-attack? Are you prepared for a natural or man-made disaster? Have you identified the cascading effects of a long-term interruption of your operations?

What are the cascading effects of an interruption of your business operations? There are many, however we will discuss a few here:

Loss In Market Share: All disasters begin and end at the local level, for a business, they can be viewed as a personal problem. If your operations cease, for whatever reason, your customers will seek your products and services elsewhere. Once they leave it will be hard to get them back. 

A Loss of Human Resources: Skilled personnel are hard to find. Just because your business took a hit does not mean your employees can or will put their lives on hold. They still have bills to pay and dreams to achieve. They will take their skills elsewhere, which will prolong your organization’s recovery.

Loss to the Community: This ties in with the previous point. Is your business a major employer in the community? What happens to the community when its major employer is no longer in operation? The National Response Framework identifies seven community lifelines are the most fundamental services in the community that, when stabilized, enable all other aspects of society to function. A strong economic system is part of these lifelines.

The Bottom Line: The definition of bottom line is dependent upon your business. For our purposes we will define the bottom line as the availability of your product and services. Products and services for those of you in the medical profession or non-profit organizations are more valuable than money.

Disasters or emergencies can result in property loss or loss of life, but when you are prepared for these events, you can help ensure your losses aren’t as severe. Having a business continuity plan in place can help you resume your operations and maintain your responsibilities in the event of a disaster.