How to Build Continuity Within Your Business

In the case of an emergency event, you want your business to recover and continue operating successfully. But many businesses fail to thoroughly prepare and plan for a natural disaster or equally debilitating event. 

Being intentional about your business’s continuity could be the difference between permanently closing your doors and thriving through unprecedented events. So, how can you keep going when something unexpected happens in your business and ultimately grow from the experience?

Read on for four continuity measures to put in place to ensure your business’s longevity.

Refer to Your Business Model 

When an unexpected event happens, referring back to your original business model plan helps you get back to the basics, relearn the goals of your business, and get motivated to get things back on track. 

You should absolutely have a detailed business plan. But if that’s not yet possible, at the very least, you should have a business model canvas. According to Lucidspark, business model canvas helps you organize information about your business before creating a more thorough business plan. Your business model canvas includes information on:

●  What you’re offering your customers.

●  Who’s involved in your business.

●  What actions need to take place to achieve the vision you have for your business.

●  Any resources available to you.

●  Who your customers are.

●  How you communicate and interact with your customers.

●  What channels you use to reach potential customers.

●  Associated costs.

●  How you’ll bring in money.

This information can give you direction on how to move forward with your business vision after an unexpected event. In addition to referring to your business model, you’ll want your plan for how to handle unexpected events right next to it.

Build a Continuity Plan

Having something like a business plan to refer to when things take a turn is valuable. But imagine a resource that directly addresses how to work through unexpected events in your business.

Insert business continuity plan here. A business continuity plan outlines the steps you’ll take in the face of an unplanned event. To build a business continuity plan, follow these steps:

1. Define your worst-case scenarios in business. You want to think ahead and lay out all the biggest problems that could come up in your business.
2. Do some research on how to work through the events you listed in the first step. Trust the experts and let them guide your resolution decisions.
3. Instead of creating just one continuity plan that outlines instructions for all of the events you listed in step one, make a plan for each of the scenarios you highlighted with their own set of specific guidelines. For example, let’s say one of the events you detailed in step one was a flood hitting your area and taking your facility out. You want to ensure your continuity plan for this event includes keeping a storage unit on hand for salvageable documents and equipment that’s accessible when you need it. Detail the associated costs, how you’ll pack things, how you’ll transport the items, and so forth.
4. Then, you’ll want to put your plans into perspective before finalizing them. Meaning, you’ll want to consider how the plans you’ve created affect employees, customers, investors or shareholders, and your community. Do the solutions in the plans accommodate everyone?
5. Lastly, document everything and get your plans on paper to make them real. Then, share them so that everyone is on the same page with what to do in case these events happen.

Ultimately, having a business continuity plan in place makes navigating unexpected events that much easier. While these first two measures involve your internal teams, this next one involves building external relationships.

Strengthen Community Relationships

Coping with disaster isn’t easy. But the effects of a disaster aren’t as catastrophic when you have other people to lean on. So, build continuity within your business by strengthening your community relationships.

Explore your neighborhood and see how you can support other business owners in the area. Form community partnerships, attend events, and host some of your own to forge those relationships.

Ultimately, by strengthening your community relationships, you’re assembling a support group that will be extremely helpful when it’s time to navigate unfortunate events in your business.

As you strengthen your community relationships, you’ll notice how much you learn from each business owner you encounter. Being open to learning about business success from anyone you can is so crucial to business continuity. And that brings us to our last measure to put in place to build continuity within your business.
 

Never Stop Learning

New ways to deal with an unexpected event in business will constantly arise. Technological advancements, evolving business laws, a new wave of business owners, and so forth will all contribute to how we thrive through unexpected events in our businesses in the future.

So, it’s crucial you never stop learning. When you never stop learning, you can accumulate creative ways to approach unexpected events in your business. You can learn about how other businesses in your industry worked through a disaster or tragic event. You can also leverage the experience of other business owners and rework what they did to fit what you need.

Conclusion

You’ve got to be intentional about building continuity within your business. To recap, have a solid business plan and a detailed continuity plan in place to keep you focused on rebuilding. Then, focus on strengthening your relationships with the community to further your support. And finally, never stop learning because there will always be new ways businesses work through trying times.