If you’re unsure what a business continuity plan is, you’re not alone. Many small businesses don’t have one. But if you have any kind of disaster plan in place, let’s start from there. Many businesses have plans to recover from weather-related catastrophes, fire, and theft. Any of these plans can be adapted to suit our new situation. A continuity plan helps you create a process that you can follow before and after your company experiences any kind of disaster.
A business continuity plan can have many parts. For our current situation, cash flow planning can be an important first step. You can use multiple scenarios, for example, revenue levels, to determine how much cash you might need for the next few months.
You may need to evaluate inventory, supply chain, project backlogs, staffing, cash, and other areas of your business to project how things will change from normal operations. You will need to protect your various business functions – HR, IT, accounting, operations, and administration – during this time.
Once you have this plan in place, the next step would be to think about what recovery will look like when it comes. The good news about our current situation is that we have more time to plan than we would if a fire or weather brought things down suddenly. We also will not have a disruption in electricity, water, or the local supply chain in as severe an impact compared to a weather event.
What we may not have in this case is customers (or we’ll have too many of them). When customers finally start coming back, what will look different in our world? Will we need to operate differently? How will our services change?
In both the continuity plan and the recovery plan, we truly need to be innovative thinkers. We may need to evolve our business model to be something else that people want once we reopen.
If you need help building your resiliency, or even just projecting your cash flow for the next few months, please reach out and let us help.