Every now and then, there are companies that go out of business because they have failed to recover from disaster. In most cases, this was a result of poor planning and even due to the management believing such events would never happen. Example of disaster we can refer to are the flooding across parts of the UK in 2007, causing significant damage to houses and businesses across many towns and cities. Another example is the tragedy of the World Trade Centre on September 11th 2001: something that no one would have predicted, and certainly not on such a huge scale as it resulted in the total loss of the trading entity itself.
Disaster can strike at any time and so often those issues that seem so small can make the highest impact to business failure, particularly to small businesses. As businesses today increasingly rely on the use of computer systems and automated technology, the loss of such equipment can result in severe financial loss and cause a threat to survival. The aim of this article is to help make you aware of potential disasters and how you can prepare for them before it’s too late.
What Is a Disaster?
There are many different definitions for ‘disaster’ but to make it clear in the term that we want to relate to, we can define it as “an event that has occurred unexpectedly with destructive consequences”. Disasters can be put into three main categories:
Natural Disasters
Flooding
Hurricanes
Blizzards
Storms
Land slides, etc
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Human Disaster
Theft and criminal damage
Fire
Death/poor health/general sickness
Contamination
War/conflict/terrorism
Workplace violence, etc
Technical Disasters
Power cuts
Break down of computer networks
Gas leaks
Communication failure
Cooling/heating/ventilation system failure, etc
What Can be Lost in a Disaster?
This can be anything that prevents your business from operating for a period of time, or to the extreme, even at all. This can include assets, employees, records, stock, facilities and also suppliers (the disaster does not have to be yours). To make it easier, we can categorise:
The loss of information e.g. customer details, important telephone numbers, etc
The loss of access e.g. to an area of the premises, etc
The loss of use e.g. stock, on-site and future supplies, machinery, PC network, etc
The loss of personnel e.g. a manager or employee through death or illness, etc
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