Is Your Office On The Brink Of Disaster?

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You may not realise this but your business office could be on the edge of a disaster for a variety of reasons. If it is, it’s not too late to complete a course correction. The problem here is that most employers have no idea what disaster they are going to face until it hits. Let’s look at a few and see if we can work to tackle them head on.

Legal Lows

It is possible that your business could be heading for a lawsuit. This will certainly be true if you are not keeping health and safety levels in your office high. You would be amazed by the type of issue that could cause a serious injury in your office. For instance, there might be loose wires over the floor. This could mean someone trips, falls and breaks their neck. It can happen and if it does your business could lose hundreds of thousands.

Tech Failure

Or, maybe your tech is about to fail. You hope this isn’t the case but you can’t be sure. Tech can falter or fail for a variety of reasons including a glitch in the software that you are using. You can’t prevent it but you can prepare for it. To do this, think about hiring an IT support team. They’ll monitor your tech and ensure that there are no serious issues.

Loss Of Faith

Or, perhaps your employees are losing faith in your business. When this happens it can be a disaster because they may stop working or bothering to come in at all. High employee absences are a clear sign that something is going wrong in your business model. You can learn more about managing this issue in the infographic below.


Managing Employee Attendance created by brighthr

Extra Steps Your Business Should Take When Risks Are Involved

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Running a company is risky business. There is no risk-free way of doing it. So, you should try to learn how to handle risks better. Your business will face all kinds of different risks. Getting your approach to each of them right could turn out to be the difference between success and failure. It really is that important. So, here are some of the extra steps you’ll need to take to keep your business safe when risks are involved.

Get Your Location Right

To start with, your location needs to be right. There are multiple ways in which the location of your business can be impacted by risks. For a start, you will want to be somewhere that gives you the best chance of reaching customers. If you pick a poor location, you risk a poor start that could have a hugely negative impact on the business’s chances of finding success. Then there are environmental risks that should be taken into account. Do you really want to start a business in a location that has a history of flooding or other weather risks?

StrategyDriven Risk Management Article
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Have a Plan for When Tech Disaster Strikes

Tech disasters are very common in the world of business. We rely so much on computers and various other forms of technology. Of course, this has huge benefits. But it’s also a risky way to go about things. Tech can break down or stop working at any time. There could be power cuts or data loss. All of these things need to be planned for properly. There are companies that offer disaster recovery as a service, so look into this if you want an extra layer of protection in place. You should also train your employees on what to do if a tech disaster happens on their watch.

Find the Right Insurance Coverage

Insurance is one of those things that business owners either ignore or view as a necessary evil. Maybe both of those approaches are wrong, though. Insurance can do so many positive things for your business. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to think things through and get the best possible level of coverage for the best price. Unless you put some time into seeking out the best insurance deals, you won’t be able to do that. It’s something you could live to regret when something goes wrong, though.

StrategyDriven Risk Management Article
Image courtesy of JPhotoStyles.com

Track Your Cash Flow Better

How closely and carefully do you track your cash flow? If you just go with the flow and let it do its own thing, it might work for a while. But before long, things will get messy and chaotic. That is almost always what happens when you don’t track your cash flow properly. Unfortunately, it’s a mistake that is very common as well. Spending money is always a risk in business. If you do too much of it and not enough is coming back into your business, you’ll have a problem. So, keep a close eye on it and make sure everything balances out. It’s a risk that should be simple to manage.

Can Your Company’s Operations Cause a Black Swan Event?

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According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Black Swan events are rare, catastrophic events that many retrospectively assert could have been predicted and thus prevented. But can they? Could your company’s operational performance cause the next Black Swan tragedy?

Before we answer the question of whether or not your company’s operations could cause a Black Swan event, I need you to consider your organization’s risk tolerance as we’ll be defining the Black Swan event in those terms.

You see, Black Swan events reported by the media are defined by a much higher impact and scope than what most organization’s can tolerate. So with your organizations unique tolerance in mind, consider the following question sets regardless of how the event might be initiated:

Set 1

  • Does your company’s operations involve significant amounts of hazardous or potentially hazardous materials?
  • Does your company’s operations involve high energy systems or materials?
  • Does your company operate in an inhospitable environment such that inappropriate operations could result in harm to a large number of people or result in significant damage to assets or the environment?
  • Does your company provide a commodity without which a vital service would be impaired?
  • Does your company’s operations integrate with others such that a mishap could bring down a network supporting the provision of vital services?

Set 2

  • Could a relatively large number of people be impacted by an operational mishap at your company?
  • Could a significant asset loss be incurred by an operational mishap at your company?
  • Could a significant environmental impact result from an operational mishap at your company?

If you answered yes to any of the Set 1 and any of the Set 2 questions, your organization’s operations could cause what is for you a Black Swan event.

As a leader of a susceptible organization, your next questions become:

  • How can we recognize the rising risk of a Black Swan event?
  • How do we minimize our risk of causing a Black Swan event? and
  • How can we prepare for a Black Swan event now in an efficient, financially responsible way that balances cost and risk mitigation?

To help you answer these questions, we’ve prepared a FREE video training series: Preparing for the Black Swan. During this online training course, you’ll learn:

  • the warning flags of rising Black Swan risk
  • how to develop a healthy safety culture to minimize the risk of a Black Swan event
  • how to responsibly prepare for a Black Swan event through the implementation of protocols for responding to a Black Swan event should one occur, and
  • how to effectively monitor for rising Black Swan event risk
Access the Training Course Now!

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Risk Management – Protocols for Responding to Unexpected, Catastrophic Black Swan Events

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StrategyDriven Risk Management ArticleBlack Swans events are rare (low probability), catastrophic (high impact) incidents that are seemingly unpredictable, go unrecognized, or are deemed so unlikely as to not reasonably warrant expensive preventive measures. There characteristics include:

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Risk Management – Principles for Responding to Unexpected, Catastrophic Black Swan Events

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StrategyDriven Risk Management ArticleBlack Swans events are rare (low probability), catastrophic (high impact) incidents that are seemingly unpredictable, go unrecognized, or are deemed so unlikely as to not reasonably warrant expensive preventive measures. There characteristics include:

Hi there! Gain access to this article with a StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription or buy access to the article itself.

Subscribe to the StrategyDriven Insights Library

Sign-up now for your StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription for as low as $15 / month (paid annually).

Subscribe Now!

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 Buy the Article

Don’t need a subscription? Buy access to Risk Management – Principles for Responding to Unexpected, Catastrophic Black Swan Events for just $2!

Access the Article Now!

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.