How Ready is Your Business for a Disaster?

So maybe you’ve been prepping for a few years and your home is all set.

You’ve got food, water, a generator and all the other materials and plans you’ll need to keep the house and your family safe.

But how ready is your business for a disaster?

If you’re a small business owner, the responsibility for business continuity planning falls on you. If you take too long to get back up and running after a disaster, your customers may already have moved on to your competitors. If you don’t plan well beforehand, you may not even have the money you need to rebuild and restart. You could go from owning your own business to working for someone else overnight.

Insurance, backup plans, employee retention, customer outreach and more are all important parts of keeping your business running and profitable when disaster strikes.

Jonathan Wackrow does a great job at CSO Online of laying out a checklist for business continuity planning. He writes:

Natural disasters often strike with little to no warning, but their operational and economic impact to organizations can be devastating. As scientists expect the future will likely include more cases of extreme weather, organizations should leverage the calm before the storm to ensure that business continuity plans address key impacts of a natural disaster event. Preparation is the best defense against these disasters, and the time for preparing is now – before disaster strikes.

Key elements that business continuity plans should incorporate include the potential operational and economic impact of such events, particularly in light of previous natural disasters. Specifically, the aftermath and losses of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the more recent mandatory evacuation of the Eastern seaboard during Hurricane Matthew in 2016 highlight the importance of business continuity planning and preparedness.

A recent study conducted by a leading insurance provider found that 48 percent of all small businesses do not have a business continuity plan. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates that 40 percent of businesses do not reopen after a disaster, and another 25 percent fail within one year. The factor underlying this failure rate is business’ fundamental under-preparedness. Compounding the problem is the lack of understanding of the scope and breadth of insurance coverage or government provisions.

E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

E.J. Smith is the Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention. E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com. Sign up here to receive all the best content from Richardcyoung.com each week.