How Your Business Will Recover After Disaster

When running a business, there is always that feeling that things are going almost too well and that something is bound to crop up and derail all your hard work in an instant. Whether or not this feeling is justified, for the superstitious among us, it is nothing but a sign of something about to go very wrong, very soon.

Most small businesses will encounter disaster at some point, this is unavoidable, as many types of disaster are usually influenced by external factors. But it is the actions you take immediately following this disaster can be a make or break for your company.

BREAK-INS AND ROBBERIES

Break-ins and robberies can be traumatic experiences matter when the theft took place. Whether it be during the day, where your employees were exposed to the crime, or at night, where you are stuck with the knowledge of intruders rummaging through potentially sensitive information.

While people always think ‘It won’t happen to me’, that doesn’t mean you can afford to be careless. Ensuring you have taken the correct measures to adequately secure your office from outsiders will save a lot of trouble in the future. For this, it is smart to research CCTV systems online as well as investing in alarm systems to properly protect your business from intruders.

FORCES OF NATURE

Natural disasters can have a catastrophic effect on your business. Statistics demonstrate that ninety percent of businesses that remain closed up to five days following a natural disaster will end up closing forever.

Dealing with the aftermath of natural disasters can be a long and arduous process. Depending on the type of disaster (flood, hurricane, wildfire, etc.) it is essential to have a contingency plan at the ready to continue. Identifying potential issues that might occur in the case of a disaster will allow you to act quickly and efficiently, should disaster strike.

It is recommended to create a list of things to check – such as electricity and leaks within the business, as well as getting in contact with a recovery team to assist you, your employees, and any customers that might be with you at the time.

HACKING

There are over fourteen million businesses in the US alone that are at risk of a hacking threat. Modern technology has made it easier than ever to access the sensitive data of others and use it for bribery, or the hacker’s benefit.

To avoid falling victim to hacks, where much of your important information such as bank details, passwords, and addresses could be accessed, it is imperative to invest in a reliable and secure IT security system. Furthermore, encourage your employees to not share personal information with anyone, no matter how harmless, and have them change passwords every two weeks or so (as annoying as we all know that can be).

The risk of disaster is ever present, but that doesn’t mean your business needs to live in fear of when it may strike. By adequately preparing for any disaster before it happens, you will be in a better position than before following it, and the chance of recovering is stronger than ever.

You Can Still Cut Costs With Business

Some people assume that business should always be about spending. Once you get to that point where you feel like you’ve got a lot of money in terms of profit, it can be easy to get carried away. But, money doesn’t last forever, and business isn’t always as reliable as people think. All that has to happen is one of your competitors jumps ahead of you, and before you know it your sales are dropping, and you’re looking for ways to cut back on things. But if you had just spent the time cutting back on the things you spent the most on in the first place, then going through rough patches might not be as hard. So don’t just think you need to be spending all the time, read this helpful advice to see how you can make some small business cuts.

Office

Your office can often become really expensive, even if you are a managed office space. The rent you have to pay is really high, and a lot of them ask for you to pay your own electricity bills due to the amount you’re using. If this sounds like something you’re dealing with, you need to look for simpler solutions such as owning your own office. It’ll cut back costs in the long run more than you’ll realise. You can save money by choosing the energy provider that you’d like to use, and you can install things such as solar panels to try and make things cheaper for you. Bills are a nightmare no matter whether it’s to do with business or not, you should always be looking to save that bit of extra money.

Things You Use

Everyone has tools or technology that they need to use in order for their business to be successful. It might be an office needed computers, a warehouse needing machinery, or a bricklayer needing his tools. All have ways of cutting down costs if you know where to look. If you do do manual labour work, you should look at things such as Bryson Products online to see where you can get the cheapest deals. If you work in an office and need laptops or computers etc. things will get really expensive really quickly. The best thing you can do is buy second hand or refurbished computers. They will still work perfectly fine, and a lot of them will come with a guarantee. If you know you spend a lot on things such as this, just always make sure you’re shopping around for the cheapest option.

Spendings

Yes, all of the above come under spendings, but we’re talking about the random spendings you’ll make using that all important business card once you’re in the profit margin to have one. As we said in the opening paragraph, people get a bit money happy when they make it in business. But this is where the spending can get out of control. Be sure to put some of that money away for savings, even if you feel like you’ve got a lot coming in that can be wasted.

Don’t Miss These Tricks

If you own your own business, you’ll probably be thinking you know exactly what to do about everything, especially if you’ve been going for a long time. But sometimes it’s easy to become so hyper focused on the actual running of the business, that you miss the little tips and tricks that could make it even better. It’s often to case that people don’t want outside advice, but if it’s going to make your business better, you’d be silly not to. This article is going to give you some simple tricks to help the running of your business that you might not have considered before.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is one of the best things you can do for your business. It takes the stress away from everything you’ve had to worry yourself about before. Plus, there are some things you just don’t know how to do that are going to be better to outsource. Marketing is an example for one. For some reason small businesses don’t tend to enter into the world of marketing until they’re a bit bigger. But this is one of the tricks they’re missing. Marketing has the power to get your business noticed in weeks. But, it is also hard to know what is the right thing to do, so your best option in this case is outsourcing. That’s just one of many things that could be outsourced.

Orders

It doesn’t matter what business you are, they’ll be things that you’ll need to have in order to run your business smoothly. If you’re a lorry driver, spare parts and wheels are always going to be necessary. If you’re a farmer, things such as red diesel is important to the running of your business. But these things can sometimes be a nightmare to source, and there will be a lot of companies out there who will try to rip you off in a sense. So, making sure you shop around for the best deal, and pick the most reliable person is so important. If you build a good bond with some order companies, you’re more likely to get discounts on future deliveries as well.

Productivity

This is going to be one of the hardest things to maintain when it comes to running a business. Not only will your employees productivity drop, but yours can easily do the same as well. When you’re doing the same thing day in, day out, it really is hard to stay motivated. This is where incentives comes in and you can drive yourself and your workforce to do better. With your workforce, give them incentives like bonuses for meeting targets, and organise things such as office meal out, or order in lunch for them. It’s just little things like that that’ll really help to keep people on track. As for yourself, you need to remember to take time off. You’re going to be rushing around constantly trying to make sure business is running smoothly. Just one day off, away from the business as much as you can, should be all you need to keep yourself motivated.