Business Continuity Planning Steps – Systems Outage Planning
Do you have your business continuity planning steps in place? And if you’ve planned for it, is your staff trained and ready? Have they been told what to do in case of emergency or disaster like an electrical outage that causes systems shut down? Is your business ready? Have you done your systems outage planning? Does your staff know what to do and how to conduct business if your systems go down? This may include a power outage, network down, phone communication system outages, etc. It happens and it makes it a little easier to get through it if you are prepared. Have your processes and procedures in place to keep operations up and running.
As a small business owner, having your business continuity planning steps in place will help you respond faster when disruption strikes and minimize the negative impact on your business.
My Most Recent Experience with a Company that had Not Done their Business Continuity Planning Steps
As a customer, I have experienced a large company totally shut down twice in the last month because the staff could not function without the computers. The first I could
understand – they could not get their orders from the system, and therefore could not process them. The sad part is that they were turning business away.
However, the second issue was one that was so easy to fix. I called their 800 number to find out the closest location to where I was located (as their website search was not working). The response was told their computers were down so she couldn’t tell me. I asked if she had the addresses written down somewhere. Her reaction was amazing – obviously not trained very well in customer service (a whole other issue) – she acted like it was a dumb question for me to ask. Her computer wasn’t working so she couldn’t help me – end of discussion! It totally floored me that they didn’t have a PRINTED version of their office locations. That is such an easy fix! They didn’t get my business that day, their competition did though.
Business Continuity Planning Steps – Where to get Started
- Identify what is needed – essential business functions
- Prepare a plan for each essential function
- Establish who will be responsible for what part of the plan
- Review to determine nothing has been left out
- Train staff, test them on it regularly
- Revise and update the plan as needed
Business Continuity Planning Steps – Are You Prepared?
We are all very dependent on our technology now, I understand that. If you are like most small business owners, then your computer system is the heart and soul of what makes things work at home. But if this were to fail would it not be a huge setback for any company? I know that we all depend on our technology nowadays but sometimes life happens even when systems don’t go down! What can one do in order to stay afloat during such an unfortunate event as system failure or power outage where everything else goes dark around them.
When the power goes out, we all feel vulnerable. We depend on our technology to stay in touch with each other and operate businesses. But what can you do if those systems are down? There’s more than one way to help customers even without high-tech solutions. Have your business continuity planning steps in place before an emergency.
Ask yourself, what can I do to still operate my business if those systems are down? Print a list of your locations? Have a sales book to hand-write receipts? And do you have all of these backup operations written down for your staff to follow in case of emergency? Don’t have your employees tell your customers they can’t help them. There are ways of helping your customers, even if it isn’t the most high-tech way of doing things. Don’t send them to the competition, you might not ever get them back. Have your business continuity planning steps in place and keep your customers happy!
