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Managing Your Business Response to Natural Disasters

 

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Natural disasters vary massively in the scale of the damage caused, but businesses can end up being badly hit unless you take steps to remedy the situation. Ultimately, you are better off if you are well-prepared to deal with the event before it happens, but there are always going to be consequences involved. In this article, we are going to be taking a closer look at some of the response measures that you can take in order to recover your business operations at the earliest possible opportunity.

 

Implement Your Disaster Recovery Plan

First of all, you should turn to your disaster recovery plan as this should have a play by play account of the steps that you need to take. If you have yet to make one of these plans, now is your time to act so take a look at this DRP template you can use. Once you have made the plan, you need to keep it updated on a regular basis so you can respond to the changing threats that your business faces.

 

Contact Your Insurer

Before clearing up any of the damage that has been caused, you need to contact your insurer to get an accurate estimate of the scale of the disaster. You should have an inventory of everything in your office and what has been impacted by the event. Remember that all the damaged items are evidence of what your business has gone through, and the impact that has been caused by the disaster.

 

Seek Assistance

There are various organisations out there that help out when disasters occur, so you should see what options of assistance are available. You may be eligible for some sort of low-rate, long-term loan to help you get back on your feet. Remember, if you don’t ask, you don’t get so it

is always worth investigating the different options that are available to you.

 

Make Sure You Communicate

Once you have implemented the initial recovery stages, you then need to start communicating with your customers and clients. Luckily, communication is so much more efficient than it once was, so you can take steps like updating the homepage of your website and sending out some messages on Twitter and Facebook. You are better off being honest about exactly what has happened, giving some more information about possible delays to your service.

 

Start Getting Back on Your Feet

Now is the time that you can get back on your feet, so you should start by recovering the essential parts of your company. In your disaster recovery plan, you should already have some detailed information about what you need to keep running. You may need to operate from a backup location to start off with, so you should decide where this is going to be. Over time, you will work step by step towards your recovery.

 

When you experience an event that is out of your control like a natural disaster, it is important that you are ready to respond in the best way possible.