Don’t let natural disaster spell ruin for your business

Floods in Narok town. Have a business continuity plan to protect your business against losses when natural disaster hit. PHOTO | FILE 

By CANUTE WASWA

In Summary

• A good business continuity plan will ensure that you minimise costs and reduce down time even during interruptions of any kind such as a power failure or IT system crashes.
• For larger disasters like an earthquakes, a solid business continuity plan could actually mean the difference between whether it recovers, or it is one of many that can’t recoup the losses and it goes under.

When floods hit Narok town last week, it claimed 15 lives, left eight people hospitalised and destroyed property valued at millions of shillings.

Last year, heavy rains damaged property worth Sh500 million with Narok Traders Association chairman Dr David Sankok calling for construction of drainage lines to avert further damage in future.

A few days ago, a heavy downpour in Nairobi caused flooding and traffic snarl ups on major roads within the city centre and the suburbs.

My main thrust for this article is one sobering fact; an estimated 25 per cent of small businesses never reopen after a catastrophe.

The main problem is lack of planning. Emergencies and disasters don’t discriminate. They can affect any business, including yours.

The most common disasters that hit businesses hard are earthquakes. But since these large disasters don’t occur regularly, we become complacent.

I will borrow from how the management guru Steve Covey describes two words—urgent and important.

Urgent means that a task requires immediate attention. These are the to-do’s that shout “Now!”. Urgent tasks put us in a reactive mode, one marked by a defensive, negative, hurried, and narrowly-focused mindset.

Handling the effects of flooding in Nairobi and Narok is urgent.

Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals.

Sometimes, important tasks are also urgent, but typically they’re not. When we focus on important activities we operate in a responsive mode, which helps us remain calm, rational, and open to new opportunities.

Proper town planning and discipline in following the said plans is important.

In that respect, having a business continuity plan is important.

A good business continuity plan will ensure that you minimise costs and reduce down time even during interruptions of any kind such as a power failure or IT system crashes.

For larger disasters like an earthquakes, a solid business continuity plan could actually mean the difference between whether it recovers, or it is one of many that can’t recoup the losses and it goes under.