5 Cast Iron Reasons Why Having a Business Continuity Plan Will Significantly Improve the Way Your Small Business Performs in the Future…
The threats to businesses these days come from all directions. From the “simple” loss of electricity or water, flood, or fire – to the less common but still possible terrorist attack, medical emergency, hacker attacks or worse.
No matter what size of company you are, from the sole trader to the large corporate all businesses which are exposed to varying degrees of risk
At the core of most small businesses, it can often be the IT systems that are most vulnerable to attack. Whether it’s a power supply issue, hackers, terrorism or simply human error, the loss of a computer system can often bring a company to its knees, as contracts, stock lists, phone numbers, records and all forms of data suddenly vanish from the screen.
Large corporate organisations spend vast sums of money ensuring their exposure to risk is minimised, just because you don’t have these large budgets it doesn’t mean to say that to you, personally, your business is not as equally important.
Firstly the good news, advances in technology and network links, matured products, more advanced tools and improved services have significantly reduced the cost of Business Continuity for all and no longer should the small business assume that it is just too costly for them…
E.g. what do you do, for example, if your place of work caught fire (even if that place of work was your home office)?
Some hard decisions will have to be made, and made quickly. For instance:
- What do you do with all your staff?
- How do you tell the community/customer that you cannot provide your 'business/service as usual'?
- How do you meet important deadlines?
The list of questions grows, and so do the levels of uncertainty and anxiety. Without a Business Continuity Plan you will have to rely on an ad-hoc approach to deal with these, and the many other issues that will present themselves.
The main advantages of a planned response include:
- Identification of critical systems and information in advance of an event, so that an informed decision can be taken on the extent to which such systems should be protected
- Definition of the roles of individuals
- Determination of the resources required to maintain a minimum level of service to the community/customer
1. Your Employees are the Most Important People in Your Business Today, Make Sure They are Tomorrow by Staying in Business…
It is reported that fewer than 1 in 3 small businesses take the time to prepare a Continuity Plan. Perhaps more startling though, is that of the two thirds who do not have a Plan, as many as 90% are forced to cease trading within 2 years of a major data loss.
If this is not reason alone, then I don’t know what is. At the very least you have a duty of care to your employees to safeguard their jobs. You wouldn’t, after all, knowingly and intentionally expose your business and their livelihoods to risk in any other way.
2. Protect Your Existing Customers and Your Suppliers; a Loss of Confidence can be Hard and Costly to Restore…
Having a Business Continuity Plan in place – and well known – can dramatically reduce the impact of any of these events. And by minimizing risk, to yourself and to your customers and suppliers, you make yourself a much more attractive player in the market.
The fact that you have a plan will inspire confidence in both your customers and your suppliers that no matter what it is always safe to do business with you and they will not be left high and dry!
3. How to Open More Doors to More Customers and Win More Business…
Did you also know that for the public sector a Business Continuity Plan is fast becoming a pre-requisite to winning that tender and that it could also apply to all businesses in the whole supply chain?
Hence, by simply having a Business Continuity Plan you are putting yourself ahead of your competitors, up-to 68% of small to medium sized business do not have one. Let your potential customers know of your plan and educate them on why it is relevant and important to them! Use the plan as another way to differentiate yourself
4. Planning to Improve Your Business Efficiency and Reduce Cost…
During the early planning stage your business processes will be analyzed and your current IT infrastructure assessed. More often than not it has been found that a change to one or more of the business processes and/or your underlying infrastructure could not only reduce the impact of a disaster but also improve the efficiency of your business at the same time
Not only that but, by simplifying your infrastructure you will reduce your on-going support costs and make your business much more recoverable at the same time!
5. and Finally…Once the Plan is Formulated We Guarantee Something Money Alone Can’t Buy… Peace of Mind
So, where can we help?
This is where our real world experience of this topic will prove invaluable to you. We will help you to identify and prioritise those ‘truly’ business critical functions and systems (so put the coffee machine near the bottom of the list) and make recommendations how to reduce their exposure to risk and improve their recoverability. So no matter what size your business or your budget, everyone can benefit from such a review.
The output of the review will be a report detailing what impact a disaster would likely have on your business and where you are most exposed to those risks. We will also provide you with some quick wins and a list of counter measures that you could put into place almost immediately that will begin to bring you that peace of mind.
It may be simply validating or improving your current data back-up and recovery processes OR a complete business recovery plan with hot stand-by facilities.
And There Has Never Been a More Appropriate Time to Take Advantage Our Hot Off the Press Very Latest Offer…
“What Could YOU Do With £1278?”
If you are a small to medium sized business with between 2-50 computer users in the Derby, Nottingham, Chesterfield, Mansfield and Grantham area CaN IT is offering YOU a Continuity Review worth a minimum of £1278. This offer is limited the first 50 qualifying companies and as we are marketing this in various local business publications we naturally
expect the response to be high, so apply TODAY, you really have everything to lose if you don’t!
The output from this Review will be your starting point to achieving peace of mind. Just doing something positive today by giving us a call to book your review will start to ease those nagging concerns…
Call 08456 869 222 now for Your Absolutely Free Business Continuity Review or Alternatively Email support@can-it.co.uk