How Resilient is your Business?

This summer I drove to one of my favorite local restaurants. This small little noodle place has developed a cult following in the area and once someone in the office brings it back, the smells alone will make your mouth water and want to get some of those awesome noodles.   On this particular day, when I arrived they had a sign up stating that they were "closing for a week for vacation and would be back."  Since I am fairly certain this is a family business, it made sense and my next step was to walk to another place in the complex.  Two doors down, the next restaurant had a sign that said "Sorry Closed, Family Emergency!" I thought to myself that I hoped everyone was ok, but what was the chance two restaurants near each other being closed for random reasons.  Luckily the sandwich shop 100 yards away was open and it all worked out.

This made me think of our business, our customers and small businesses in general. These two businesses are small enough or organized in such a way that they cannot operate if they want to take vacation or something critical comes up. There are some really great parallels with this situation that I feel are worth sharing.

1. If you have a single IT employee or contractor, what do you do when they are on vacation or out sick? Do you call them at home or in the hospital if something comes up?
2. Do you have processes and procedures for someone else to follow to keep your business running if a critical employee is not available?
3. What if you have a water pipe burst, a fire or an encrypting virus (which is the IT equivalent of a family emergency), do you have a business continuity plan?

Each of those simple scenarios could have a major impact on your business if you don't have an answer or a plan. My biased opinion would say that using a great IT Managed Services company that documents your processes, protects your data and systems and has both resource depth and provides continuity of services is a great choice. If you don't go that route, you should think about what you can do so your customers can get access to your business offerings, even if you or a key employee is away. We live in a digital world and if implemented correctly, IT can help you serve your customers or operate your business even while you are on vacation or if you have a disaster.  The companies who used our business continuity solution were able to keep running during the recent hurricanes in the south.