How to take learnings from business emergencies
Business emergencies always seem to occur at the worst possible moment, and amid the chaos, it can be difficult or even impossible to find the learnings. However, with a considered approach when fixing the problem and repairing the damage, you can discover ways to use emergencies to your future benefit, leaving your company better prepared to face the next disruption.
- Reviewing what happened
Once you have dealt with the immediate problem, review the sequence of events while the details remain fresh. Speak to the people involved and establish what happened, asking specific questions such as when they noticed the issue and what they did next.
Try to distinguish the trigger from the underlying weakness. If an important order arrived late because a supplier failed to deliver, for example, the supplier caused the immediate problem. However, relying on one supplier, leaving orders to the last minute and holding no contingency stock may have made the consequences much worse, turning a frustrating into an emergency.
- Finding physical weak links
Emergencies reveal just how much your operation depends on things working perfectly, especially in terms of physical equipment, premises and supplies. Analyse your existing setup and try to spot where you might be overly dependent on something. These are the weak links in the chain.
As you map the vulnerabilities, consider appropriate alternatives that could help to prevent catastrophes that have the potential to cause major disruption if something went wrong.
For example, you might keep spare equipment for genuinely critical gear and maintain a list of alternative suppliers including a reliable same day delivery option to ensure urgent replacements and orders arrive on time. The aim isn’t to prepare for every imaginable scenario. Instead, focus your resources on bottlenecks where a relatively small failure could stop you generating revenue.
- Exploring digital risks
A cyberattack, corrupted file, internet outage or inaccessible account can bring everyday work to a halt surprisingly quickly. In this increasingly digital age, understanding and protecting against the risks following a digital issue is paramount to securing the longevity of your business.
Map the digital systems you rely on and decide how you would operate if one became unavailable. Check whether you back up important files, who can access business-critical accounts and whether more than one person knows how essential systems work. It’s vital that the right people have the right permissions for private company data.
You should also consider general cybersecurity. Ensure staff understand the latest government guidance with keeping devices secure against cyberattack, such as setting strong passwords, saved in a password manager, and supporting these with two-factor authentication.
- Optimising staff training
A stressful incident can provide a realistic test of your team’s knowledge. You may discover that employees understand their normal responsibilities perfectly well, but don’t know what authority they have when something unusual happens. A lack of confidence in how to respond can make bad situations spiral very quickly.
Use the experience to turn gaps in knowledge into specific training exercises. Rather than arranging a broad session on emergency procedures, focus on what actually caused difficulty and provide specific guidance on what to do should that situation reoccur. Trying to cover too many topics at once will result in poor retention. Small and regular training is best.
- Planning for the future
You can’t prevent every emergency, but you can make the next one less disruptive. The most useful plans tend to address realistic situations rather than trying to anticipate every possible disaster.
Create a simple response plan for the disruptions that could have the biggest effect on your business. Assign responsibilities, record alternative suppliers and contact details, and explain which functions you need to restore first.
Revisit the plan whenever something goes wrong. A missed shipment might encourage you to diversify suppliers; a system outage could highlight the value of better backups. Over time, each incident gives you information you wouldn’t necessarily uncover when everything runs smoothly. Used constructively, that knowledge can help you build a business that handles disruption with less cost, confusion and lost trading time.
