In modern day business, a lot of technical issues can pop up due to hardware failures and virus infections which result in the loss of a business or critical data. Not only can it ruin your business’s ability to function, there’s also a chance that you will lose customers in the long-run because they will lose their trust in you. Take for example a cloud storage service. If hackers broke into the company’s data and gained access to millions of customer accounts, they could potentially steal sensitive data from the users. Not only will this cause a huge financial situation due to lawsuits, it also destroys any trust the users had in the company.
Not only are technical issues worrying, but physical ones are too. For instance, it’s not uncommon to hear about hardware failures due to manufacturing faults. These faults could potentially damage your business’s computer systems and result in a total collapse of your office network. In addition, a natural disaster or disgruntled employee can damage hardware, destroying critical data and causing massive issues with your business’s operation.
It goes without saying that tech plays an important role in business, so we need to have a contingency plan for every possible failure point that we can think of. To help you plan it, here are a couple of points to consider.
What are the risks?
They key to preventing any kind of disaster is to know what the risks are. For example, if you have an angry employee that doesn’t seem to work well in a team, then they become a risk factor. If you continue to leave them on your team and they refuse to change their attitude or you don’t want to listen to their problems, then the chance of them leaving or causing an issue with your business increases.
Another potential business risk comes with product issues. Let’s say you decided to use a lower-quality material for your product. There’s a potential risk that the product becomes worse overall despite saving you money in the production process. This could lead to customer dissatisfaction or even issues with the product that could cause future problems.
Once you analyse the risks, you need to think of the impact they have on your business. After a bit of research, diagnosis and planning, you’ll eventually come to the question: how do we prevent these problems?
How do you prevent risk?
The obvious method of preventing a risk would be to simply “fix” the problem before it becomes an issue. For instance, if you’re worried that a natural disaster could destroy some office hardware, then consider using managed cloud services to host your files on the internet at an off-site backup location. This means you’ll always have a recent backup of your business-critical data even if your hardware is shredded and destroyed. Using previous examples, let’s go over how you could remedy the issue before it becomes a major problem.
First, let’s talk about the disgruntled employee. Analyse why the employee is feeling upset or frustrated with their job and try to speak with them. If possible, make sure they’re satisfied with their job and that there are no outstanding issues, such as a dispute with another colleague or a forgotten payment on their salary. Once these issues are resolved, the employee should return to normal and work productively for your company once again.
If the risk comes with downgrading the raw materials used in your production, then first analyse what the savings are and what the potential cost of dealing with those issues is. For instance, if you save a hefty sum of money by switching to a lower cost material, then it’s possible that you can open up your product to a new audience thanks to the lower cost. This increased exposure could be worth the chance that your product develops a fault—it’s all a calculated risk. If it’s not worth it, then don’t lower the quality.
Paying the price
Backup solutions and contingency plans cost money—there’s no denying that. Unfortunately, it’s the price you have to pay in order to keep your business afloat during even the worst situations. Be it a natural disaster, computer virus or a frustrated employee ruining your brand, no one wants to see their business collapse, so make sure you’re doing whatever you can to save your business from adversity by having a sturdy contingency plan to recover from issues. If you want to be even more secure, then it’s a good idea to have several contingency plans prepared for when your business suffers drastic losses.
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