So we’ve been at this Pandemic life for almost a year now in its most chaotic state. We hope you’re moving along through the start of your 2021. How are your business goals coming along? Did you use the year 2020 to make shifts or did you continue with the status quo?
This month in the “Let’s Get to Business” Newsletter, we are back to talk about Business Continuity and setting a strong plan. We have questions (lots of questions) for consideration as you move through the year to support you in your Business Planning:
- Are you running at the speed of light without time to pause for consideration to pivot? I know, I know. The dreaded cliché of a 2020 word. Forgiveness later……
- How is your team doing?
- What’s the culture like in these uncertain times?
- What are the lessons that you’ve learned along the way?
- How are you putting your best foot forward to keep the business running when the unexpected happens?
- Do You Have a Business Continuity Plan?
- Do you have clear, documented procedures and policies to follow so should you need to make organizational structure changes and/or sell the business you have documentation in place so that business operations can continue as seamlessly as possible?
- As it relates to business and goals, are you staying on alert and nimble for changes to be flexible?
- What’s your strategy for dealing with operational threats?
Many times in business, we do SWOT Analyses to scan for external competitive threats, but not necessarily the threats within the business. We can often be our own worst enemies and get in our own way by making incorrect assumptions and not taking appropriate steps to protect ourselves from both internal and external threats.
- Do you leverage your Board of Directors to support and guide you?
- Have you prepared for weather emergencies?
- Do you have Emergency Precautions and Preparedness Plans?
- Is there a good system for equipment tracking, inventory management, and Intellectual Property?
- Are you practicing Cybersecurity protocols, server back-ups, and is records management up-to-date and into compliance?
- What does your Succession Plan look like?
- Have you identified key positions and even if so, what has been the protocol you put in place to address current and future gaps and who can succeed in the event that someone leaves the organization, dies unexpectedly, or takes a step down in transition to retirement?
- Have you considered how and when Key Executives travel together? How frequently is this happening?
- Do you have Life Insurance or other financial structures and plans in place to protect yourself and the business, particularly in cases of business partnerships?
- How lean and mean can you run your house?
- How tight of a ship can you run in terms of staffing? Think MVP (Minimum Viable Product) without duplication of efforts or risk to sales, brand, engagement and retention of customers or employees, or productivity.
- Which stakeholders would be impacted by any changes you’d need to make and how/when would you need to communicate these to them? How quickly are you able to even get the information out?
- What contracts do you have in negotiations or that would need to be potentially negotiated in the future?
This may all seem daunting and like a lot. It is, but it’s work exploration to ensure that you can minimize or prevent disruption to your business operations as much as possible to protect what you’ve worked so hard to build.
We’re here to support you so you can practice more of this…..
And less of this……
Have an amazing, agile week! We’re rooting for you!