There are lots of things that can happen to a business that can cause some serious disruption. If your business is disrupted, then it can affect your revenue, your reputation, and your ability to keep trading. It used to be that businesses worried about things like fires, floods, or natural disasters disrupting business, whereas today, some of the main concerns are network downtime and data breaches. Keep your business safe with these tips.

Identify Potential Threats

Backup and business continuity solutions are an essential part of any business. You can’t get these solutions in place if you don’t know what solutions you might need. Spend some time identifying what potential threats might hit your business. Do you handle a lot of sensitive data that might be of interest to hackers? Do you operate in an area where wildfires are a threat? Work out what your threats are, so you can prepare and plan for them. 

Build a Recovery Team

In case of a disaster, having the right people ready to take quick action for damage control and recovery is crucial. Your team should include various skill sets. First, it’s essential to have in-house IT support to handle issues like data loss or breaches during emergencies. If you don’t have an in-house team, consider outsourcing to a specialist company offering IT support tailored for specific industries, like one providing it support for construction. Outsourcing can save time and money compared to building an in-house team. Additionally, ensure your PR team is prepared to make an appropriate announcement or press release to stay ahead of the story. They should communicate what happened and the steps being taken to fix it. Customer service should know how to inform customers about the problem and reassure them. Identify potential threats and enlist the right people to help with recovery.

Train Employees

The best way to keep business running as normal is to avoid disasters altogether. You can reduce the risk of problems occurring by properly training your staff. Get some guidelines in place that cover safety and security and hold regular training sessions. Company guidelines that could help could include preventing people you don’t recognize from following you through restricted access doors, fitting door entry systems, requiring people to clock in and out, and always turning off or locking computers when staff are away from their desks. Train everyone to spot suspicious-looking emails and links. Make sure everyone knows not to download files from an unknown source and to be careful when opening email links. When armed with the right knowledge, the staff can help you to keep your business safe and protected. 

Test Your Plans

Once you’ve got a recovery plan in place and the team to implement it, run some tests. By testing, you can find any areas you’ve missed, any threats you’ve forgotten about, and can identify any gaps in your recovery team. These tests can also act as training sessions for the team who will need to act in the event of a real problem. You can adjust your plans as your business grows and keep testing them for effectiveness.