How to Protect a Business from Disaster and Emergency

Although most large businesses don't go under due to natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods, some smaller companies fail when disaster strikes. Businesses that have the right amount of insurance are prepared for most of what could happen to their businesses. Just as importantly, a business should have a disaster preparedness plan in place before the crisis hits. This is not so much making sure that you have some supplies stowed away in another are, or have your computers backed up regularly—it means more that you have a plan for continuing business activities after the event.

The first thing you should do is assess your critical needs and functions. Which areas of your business can handle long interruptions? Which can't? Most businesses can't afford the loss of customers that happens with disruptions in service. To begin assessing your company's needs, the following questions will help you focus on what's important so you can prepare your own disaster plan, something all companies should do to reduce loss of income.

• How have you ensured the safety of your employees?
• Is there a crisis management team in place, and are they well trained?
• If your offices become unavailable or unusable, where will you set up your temporary headquarters?
• Which employee can assess damage and determine the level of disaster?
• Have you made provisions for protecting computerized information and for the continuance of IT operations?
• Do you know what your critical applications are, and their priorities?
• For your company's critical duties, do you have primary and secondary personnel to fill them?
• Have you made copies of all critical documents and stored them in other locations?
• Do you have the most recent telephone records employees, customers, and vendors stored away? Do you have an efficient plan in place to contact these people in case of a crisis?
• Will you need a secondary or recovery site? If so, do you know how large you need it to be, and what accoutrements it will need?