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A women scorned!

There are many risks in life and according to some, a women scorned is near the top, but then my wife would say, if I put myself in that position, I probably deserved it and whilst I might reflect thoughtfully, deep down I know she is right.

I once had a boss who everyone outside our organisation, thought was difficult to deal with, but they just didn’t know him. If you were on his team, he was unfailingly loyal. He was frank and honest and that was sometimes difficult to deal with, but he was never unreasonable. You were never going to get stabbed in the back and you would only be likely to get a punch in the face (figuratively speaking) if you were too stupid or too slow to get out of the way.

In business as in life there is a common thread.

If you are aware of the risks you can plan to avoid them, develop strategies to mitigate the worst consequences, or create policies and procedures that will deal with them as they arise and flatten out the costs involved, so that your business is not unduly interrupted.

When asked about the most difficult thing about being prime minister, Harold McMillan said, “Events dear boy, events!” Those things you never expect, but that happen anyway. For him it was the Suez crisis. You only have to look around the world in the last 5 years to see events that changed the world as we knew it.

So don’t wait for a stab in the back, face up to to the challenges, plan for them and when they do happen, as they most assuredly will, your business can continue confidently.

Want to know how a small investment in time and money can give you almost total peace of mind in your business, so you can #justkeepgoing and how often savings in one area can even pay for the work that needs to be done, so the net cost is neutral.

Message me here or call me on 029 20470 375.

(And yes, my wife is always right 😊)

Continuity

What does resilience mean to you?

In business we think about growth and development plans all the time. How are we going to get from where we are now, to where we want to be in 5, 10,15 or 20 years time. How do we structure our business to achieve those aims and goals?

We know there are many things that could happen to frustrate those goals, and we pick off the easy ones buying business insurances once a year and then forgetting about them, but what about those things you can’t insure?

Whilst some of them might cross our mind occasionally, businesses founders seldom set time aside to consider the implications and even more rarely plan for events and incidents that could seriously interrupt the activity that generates income.

Here are a few you may not have thought about:

  1. Failure of a key supplier or customer
  2. New competitor buying into the market
  3. Legal and regulatory changes
  4. Import export restrictions
  5. Failure of critical IT systems or production machinery
  6. Long lead times on acquiring critical equipment
  7. Sudden increased material costs and stock shortages
  8. Cyber-attacks and financial crimes
  9. Micro-biological contamination
  10. Internal teams leaving to set up business

All these things can and do happen from time to time. I know, as a business continuity advisor I look at them all the time and make sure businesses can #justkeepgoing when unforeseen events really do occur.

With a little planning and foresight, you can develop plans and response structures that can kick in the minute an incident occurs, so that you can continue your income generating activity with little or no disruption and that can be the difference between success or failure.

Resilience = Consideration + Planning + Implementation + Ongoing Validation

If you’d like to know more, have a look at our website www.severnbay.com or call on 029 20 470375.