WASHINGTON – When large scale disasters hit an area, the infrastructure failure is particularly damaging to small businesses. Recent flooding in Louisiana points to a hard rule: when your business is cut off from clients, vendors and critical staff, the economic losses continue long after the cleanup is done.
The key to protecting your assets and becoming resilient in the face of a natural disaster, cyberattack, or random power outage is having a solid business continuity plan. The cost of developing a plan is low, compared to the long-term financial losses that could occur when you’re caught off guard by a crisis.
Learn how to build your own disaster preparedness plan during three free National Preparedness Month (NPM) webinars this month hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery. The series is presented in collaboration with FEMA’s Ready Campaign, and the 2016 NPM theme is “Don’t Wait. Communicate. Make your Emergency Plan Today.”
The hour-long webinars will be presented from 2 to 3 p.m. EDT each Wednesday.
These are the topics:
- September 14: “12 Steps to Preparedness for Any Organization”
- September 21: “The Top 10 Most Common Mistakes During a Crisis”
- September 28: “If You Do Nothing Else this Year…” Simple tips to build your organization’s resilience.
Go to this link to sign up for the webinars: https://www.agilityrecovery.com/buildingblocks/
The SBA has partnered with Agility Recovery to offer business continuity strategies through the “PrepareMyBusiness” website. Visit www.preparemybusiness.org to check out past webinars and for additional disaster preparedness tools.
The SBA provides disaster recovery assistance in the form of low-interest loans to homeowners, renters, private nonprofits and businesses of all sizes. To learn more, visit www.sba.gov/disaster.
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