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Business Continuity Overview

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Starting a business is one thing, keeping it going is hard. This is equally important when a business goes through tough times. What about those situations where emergencies occur? Or a disaster should follow and cause a major disruption in your business processes? Are you prepared for that? Are you running your business as efficiently as you should be? Think about this. How quickly can you recover from a major catastrophe, like a hurricane, tornado, or even worse a terrorist attack? Can your business resume working right away with very little down time? If you don't, you will need to develop business continuity. This entails a lot of things. Some of the issues business continuity covers include:

• Being informed: You have to be aware of what is going on around you. In some cases you will need to perform risk assessment to determine whether your company is in the mode to recover from any kind of disaster or disruption.
• Operations planning: You need to develop a well thought out plan of action just in case something should happen. Would you prepared to act on a situation that threatened your business? Would you know what to do? Important factors to know.
• Emergency planning: Here you need to know exactly what is involved. Your employees and co-workers must know how to handle themselves under any type of circumstances. After all, they are your most important asset. Without them it would be hard to run your business full time for a long extended time.
• Emergency supplies: Do you have supplies on hand in case of emergencies? For example, do you have a first aid kit, or fresh water available?
• Decision making: One thing about being a manager of a company is you have to make decisions regarding your company's future. One of these is would you need to shut your company down and move to another area if an emergency occurred to prevent you from carrying on with your business?
• Fire safety: Are you prepared in case of a major fire? Do you have a fire extinguisher or other safety features built into the building where your business is located? Most businesses have automatic sprinkler systems. Do you?
• Medical emergencies: Are you prepared for medical emergencies. What if you had a disaster and you have people who were wounded, would you know how to care for them? Do you a policies in place that you follow to deal with sort of situation?

Next Page: What is Business Continuity and How Should You Prepare For It?

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