A Business Continuity Program is the complete action plan to help prevent disasters and set up a plan to recover from an unexpected event that interrupts your business. A large percentage of businesses do not survive a disaster and end up out of business. Stay in business for the long term – be ready for disaster and unexpected events with a complete Business Continuity Plan.
A Business Continuity Program is sometimes viewed as an expensive program for many companies. You hear comments like:
“We don’t need it; we have never had a problem.”
“We have insurance.”
“Our people are really good. If something happens they will get us back operational in no time”
Believing these statements could prevent your company from surviving an emergency or disaster event.
If your company has never experienced a problem, consider yourself very lucky. Remember a problem does not have to happen at your facility. What happens if your major supplier or customer has a problem? What if another company in your building or campus has a problem? Any of these problems could impact your business.
You have insurance, but many sources of disasters are not covered by business insurance. Business interruption insurance covers the lost profits, buildings and operational costs. But if you have no business to operate, or no building to work out of, then insurance will not really help.
Sure your people are good, but even the best people will have trouble recovering your business if they do not know where they are going to recover the business and what they need to recover. You could buy everything after a disaster and locate a new building and build out the infrastructure and contact your clients and suppliers, etc. You also have to consider that your best people may not be available to recover your business. They may be hurt, on vacation, stressed due to the disaster or they may have died in the disaster.
By developing a Business Continuity Program for your company and making business continuity part of your corporate culture, you will be well on your way to becoming a company that will be able to survive an emergency or disaster event.
Excerpted from “Business Continuity Program Development – A Basic Guide” developed by Business Continuity & Recovery Consulting
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Could your company survive a supply chain problem during a pandemic?
While North America has not entered officially entered the flu season, there is much that needs to be considered by companies concerning their supply chain. When a pandemic strikes, it will be too late to start to investigate the areas of the supply chain that could impact your business, even if your staff does not become sick.
Have you looked closely at you supply chain? Do you know what material each company provides and the percentage of your raw materials that are supplied by each member of your supply chain?
If you find that a significant portion of your materials come from 1 or 2 suppliers then you may have a problem if these suppliers are impacted by a pandemic flu. You need to also identify how close these suppliers are to each other. If they are too close, they could both be affected by a regional quarantine.
You may be thinking that you could easily switch to another supplier if your primary supplier is shut down. This may not be possible. You do not know what percentage of the supplier’s production capacity is used to supply your raw material. If you are taking 30 to 40% of any one supplier’s capacity and other suppliers are operating at near capacity, then they will not have excess capacity to accept your order. Also, how long would it take to find negotiate and accept a new supplier into your supply chain? Would this new supplier accept that once your original supplier was back in production you would move your orders back to him?
So who in your supply chain is the critical supplier? Can you diversify part of you requirements to another supplier in another region? Do your agreements with your suppliers have the correct wording to ensure sufficient supplies during a disruption to the supplier’s work place?
Do your suppliers have a pandemic response plan? Do you?
Some research and checking now could save your company in the future.
Have you looked closely at you supply chain? Do you know what material each company provides and the percentage of your raw materials that are supplied by each member of your supply chain?
If you find that a significant portion of your materials come from 1 or 2 suppliers then you may have a problem if these suppliers are impacted by a pandemic flu. You need to also identify how close these suppliers are to each other. If they are too close, they could both be affected by a regional quarantine.
You may be thinking that you could easily switch to another supplier if your primary supplier is shut down. This may not be possible. You do not know what percentage of the supplier’s production capacity is used to supply your raw material. If you are taking 30 to 40% of any one supplier’s capacity and other suppliers are operating at near capacity, then they will not have excess capacity to accept your order. Also, how long would it take to find negotiate and accept a new supplier into your supply chain? Would this new supplier accept that once your original supplier was back in production you would move your orders back to him?
So who in your supply chain is the critical supplier? Can you diversify part of you requirements to another supplier in another region? Do your agreements with your suppliers have the correct wording to ensure sufficient supplies during a disruption to the supplier’s work place?
Do your suppliers have a pandemic response plan? Do you?
Some research and checking now could save your company in the future.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Pandemics and SMEs
There has been much talk about closing schools to help in the reduction of H1N1 influenza cases this fall in North America. How will this impact on SME's has not really been discussed.
For a large company, having staff stay home when they are sick can usually be compensated for by moving someone else into that position on a temporary basis or hiring a temporary worker from an agency. This is not an option for SMEs. They do not have the extra resources to move people around and hiring a temporary worker just is not in the budget.
Now add into the mix that if schools close, then some employees, even though they are not sick, must now stay home to look after their children. This places additional burdens on the employer.
Closing the schools has not been properly thought out by governments and school boards. When publishing these ideas, they do not take into consideration the SME owners and the impact that such decisions have on these companies.
Most SMEs do not have a pandemic response plan or a Business Continuity Plan so they will try to develop their capabilities on the fly. This will only lead to compounding the disaster. There is the real possibility that these companies could go out of business, not because of a their employees getting sick, but because of a decision to close schools that did not consider all of the possibilities that such a decision would have on the SME environment.
SMEs can reduce some of the risk of going out of business, by developing contingency and pandemic plans now while there is still time. During a disaster or pandemic, it is to late.
For a large company, having staff stay home when they are sick can usually be compensated for by moving someone else into that position on a temporary basis or hiring a temporary worker from an agency. This is not an option for SMEs. They do not have the extra resources to move people around and hiring a temporary worker just is not in the budget.
Now add into the mix that if schools close, then some employees, even though they are not sick, must now stay home to look after their children. This places additional burdens on the employer.
Closing the schools has not been properly thought out by governments and school boards. When publishing these ideas, they do not take into consideration the SME owners and the impact that such decisions have on these companies.
Most SMEs do not have a pandemic response plan or a Business Continuity Plan so they will try to develop their capabilities on the fly. This will only lead to compounding the disaster. There is the real possibility that these companies could go out of business, not because of a their employees getting sick, but because of a decision to close schools that did not consider all of the possibilities that such a decision would have on the SME environment.
SMEs can reduce some of the risk of going out of business, by developing contingency and pandemic plans now while there is still time. During a disaster or pandemic, it is to late.
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