No business is immune to experiencing disruptions in its day-to-day operations. This could come in the form of a natural disaster affecting lives, man-made interruptions, or even cyber-attacks threatening to steal the company’s valuable data in exchange for substantial monetary gain.
Disasters strike when people least expect it; most of the time, they won’t have any options left except to pick up the pieces and hope that they can somehow bounce back after sustaining damages. Unfortunately, there are a lot of businesses that never get to recover from the incidents at all.
That’s why planning for risk mitigation is crucial for any business. It may be impossible to predict when a disaster will happen, but no rule says you can’t prepare for whatever may come your way. Besides, it’s the least you could do to protect your company’s assets — your data and people.
There is no one right way to plan for risk mitigation, especially because the amount of preparation that your business will need depends on the risks you are exposed to. So, assessing your risks and liabilities could be a good start. In fact, here are three scenarios that you could consider preparing for:
Natural Disasters
Thunderstorms, floods, hurricanes, windstorms, earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes. These are just some natural disasters that can happen at any time with no alarms whatsoever. Not knowing when these disasters will strike or how to prepare for them can lead to property damages and loss of lives.
When you’re in charge of ensuring the safety of your employees, clients, and visitors inside the office premises, you must at least have some form of a protocol to keep the people safe in cases of emergencies. Through an adequate disaster preparedness plan, you may be able to reduce the injuries and damages sustained during the events.
Aside from your people, you also have to make sure that your company’s data is protected. However, that can be difficult to prioritize in the midst of an emergency, which means you should create data protection protocols before natural disasters take place. Doing so can help your business recover quicker and more efficiently.
A good way to prepare for such scenarios is by relying on an off-site data storage or center. For instance, you can look into cloud-based servers that can allow you to access your data remotely without having to rely on your on-site storage units. This way, you can reduce your operational costs and damages sustained during natural disasters.
Active Violence
Not all disasters are natural occurrences; some are man-made. This could be in the form of sabotage, thievery, corporate espionage, or even incidents that quickly escalate to active violence. When this happens, it could put the lives of everyone on the perimeter in danger simply because they were caught in the crossfire.
Knowing how to deescalate and approach such situations can help you protect people’s lives without putting your own in harm’s way. This is even more important now that news of shootings in public places is becoming more prevalent. To address this, what you can do is to undergo active shooter preparedness planning even if you think that it can’t happen to you.
Being prepared is always better than being clueless, especially if your lack of preparation can cost you your life. By taking part in the planning, you will learn about what you should and shouldn’t do in case something like that were to ever happen in your place of work, as well as how you can escape a potentially life-threatening situation.
Cyber Threats
Unlike natural disasters and incidents with active violence, cyber threats may not look like much. However, even if cyber threats don’t physically harm people or endanger their lives, cybercriminals may attack and invade their privacy when they manage to steal valuable corporate data.
Cyber threats may not be as life-threatening as the other scenarios mentioned above, but they have the ability to ruin the reputation of a business or even force them to crash and burn. This is especially true since hackers are ceaselessly attempting to hack into a computer every 39 seconds.
To address this, what you can do is increase or improve your existing cybersecurity measures in place. You won’t manage to avoid all the cyber threats that come your way, but you may be able to protect your valuable data and defeat the attacks before the situations take a turn for the worse.
Protecting the safety of your people and the integrity of your company is hard work, but it could be worthwhile if it means being able to run your business come hell or high water. Besides, preparing in advance can lessen the burdens weighing on your shoulders, so consider mitigating your risks before they even appear.