Contingency Plan For Small Business

We decided that the biggest realistic issues we could face would be the internet going down, or being hit by a cyber-attack.We would also have serious problems if numerous employees were unable to get into work for some reason.A contingency plan helps to ensure you are prepared for what may come; a crisis management plan empowers you to manage the response after the incident occurs.

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So if, for example, a ransomware attack shut down your systems – as happened to thousands of businesses recently with the Wanna Cry virus – you would know that all your files are safe elsewhere.

Alternatively, keeping files stored in the cloud will ensure they can always be accessed.

With over 2,000 members, that would leave us with an operational and communication headache on our hands.

Document everything: Put together an operational guide for your business, outlining everything you would need to know to keep it running, such as who your suppliers are, how and when they are paid, and everything else that happens on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

Work through the likely progression of events, in terms of how you would communicate to staff and customers, whether via the website, social media, or directly.

Also run through the absolute essentials you would need to keep operating, even if it is at a limited level.

It’s been an eventful year for the UK, and London in particular, with a succession of high-profile incidents reminding us how situations can change without warning. It was this realisation that drove me to start building a contingency plan for my business, The Brew, a chain of five co-working spaces across East London.

From terrorism to fire, extreme weather to cyber-attacks; it gets you thinking about how your business would cope if it was affected by something similar. We’ve grown quickly over the last five years and when that happens, you can end up with a situation where a lot of critical information exists only in your head.

As part of the same process, not only outline the roles and responsibilities of every senior member of staff, but scope out the daily and weekly tasks, so a replacement could assume those responsibilities very easily.

For example, we have fully documented our website, which is one of our most important marketing channels, so other employees could find out who hosts it, designs it and how is it updated etc…