What is Risk Management ?
It means many things to many people, but the one constant is peace of mind.
Peace of mind that your safety and the safety of those you care about is assured.
Peace of mind that your way of life is assured or at least remains tolerable.
Peace of mind that your future will be as bright as you hope it to be.
If you are a business person with leadership responsibilities, risk management means business continuity.
It’s peace of mind that your business will survive in the face of a myriad of foreseen and unforeseen disasters.
Business Continuity resilience depends on self-examination, analysis and planning. It takes an initial investment of time, money and determination to have high confidence in your plans.
Many businesses merely give this element of their operations lip service, or hand it off to someone that comes back and tells them “Don’t Worry, the box is checked off”.
This is why 75% of businesses fail within 3 years of experiencing a disaster!
You can think of business continuity as a 3 legged stool.
– The First leg is a comprehensive financial risk analysis and an insurance program to recover from the most damaging disasters.
– The Second leg is a formal, living document where a designated team implements pre-planned recovery strategies intended to mitigate, recover, return to normal following such events.
– The Third leg is a management commitment that keeps said plans current and familiar in the minds of those tasked for implementing them.
Under the first leg, many businesses buy as little insurance as possible to meet customer, landlord, contractor and regulatory requirements. Insurance bought through brokers who take huge commissions and who mainly serve the interests of the carriers that you buy insurance from. Larger corporations have a dedicated staff that works to ensure the right amounts and types of insurance that the business requires, is placed. Those without such staffs are unaware as to whether they are being sold the right insurance, with the right limits that will meet all requirements. Only too late does the business owner realize that it wasn’t enough, or didn’t apply to their type of disaster, or didn’t cover a 3rd party who is now suing your business. The surest way to eventual financial ruin is to give your insurance needs short shrift.
Under the second leg, a formally approved plan is in place which outlines the most likely scenarios for that business, as well as their business core element recovery strategies with adequate contingency resources. The plan identifies a specific business continuity team with specific roles and responsibilities who basically runs the recovery organization until it returns to normal operations.
Under the Third leg, is a periodic updating of the plans, procedures, equipment, supplies and training for the recovery teams which all leads to readiness. The best plans and procedures will have no-where the impact that a well-trained and tested team will have. Periodic tests and drills validate the plans and provide for continuous improvements to said plans.
So, is your business ready for –
- A debilitating Cyber Attack or Ransomware Attack on your systems and/or data
- A flood, fire, severe weather, riot, active shooter or other event that destroys a key facilities, equipment or inventory
- A pandemic, local health emergency, strike or other staffing challenge disabling essential staff
- A 3rd Party Supply chain failure
- A brand destroying event that is publicly announced
- An act of malfeasance by a corporate officer
- An error or omission or other situation that results in multimillion dollar litigation
- A massive privacy breach of protected data
- A social media frenzy painting your organization as a hate criminal
- Bankruptcy or stock sell off
You have put in an enormous amount of time, energy, creativity and TLC into building your business.
Why not go the last mile and not take the chance that your hit or miss preparedness will save your business at time of need.
We can show you in just a few minutes of conversation how our value proposition will give you peace of mind !
Call, Chat or Email ………
401-365-4228
401-268-7228