One day, your business seemed to be on top of the industry in your locality. Then out of the blue, a small thing happened that causes a domino-effect. You end up at the bottom of the industry or worst bankrupt. It could have been saved but unfortunately, you didn’t prepare anything. You could have prepared for the worst, but among the things that you’re lacking, it’s disaster management plan.

Disaster management plan should always be part of any business structure. Even for a small business, you at least have a vague idea on what to do before something happen. This is a common part of the business plan that small businesses miss out. To prevent that something like this will happen, you, as a business owner, should institutionalize this plan and put it in writing. In the business world, it always helps to prepare for the worst.

To know what will be your contingency response plans, you should sit down and write the things that are very important to you. For example, a call center that offers customers service should emphasize technology or agent’s skills for customers service.

Once you have determined the important things in your company, it’s time to go to the problems. Since you’re making a reactive plan, you should first establish problems to address. This part could be the easiest part but the most critical. These are actual problems that will happen to your company. If you miss one, and that very single miss will happen to your company, you may be at loss. You might be able to address the problem with other plans, but there would lots of changes that you are actually planning an all-new response to problem.

When all of the possible problems have been written, it’s time for a response. Careful documentation should be established. If you are running a bigger company, each department should have an immediate response to a certain situation. Aside from the careful planning, the time required for a careful response should be established. Not only are these things important to be acted upon, but the actual timeline within which you have to do these things should be established. For example, if one of the important hardware shuts down resulting in a stop of operation, each department should have an appropriate response. Not only will tech have to do it but marketing division should at least inform their clients as soon as this will happen. Even though it’s a bad news, a plan that’s properly set up will easily answer the concerns of clients.

Such prompt response will easily be appreciated by clients if you have a careful plan for the problem. It’s not that you’re paranoid but you know enough that anything can happen at anytime and it’s just proper to prepare things.

So before you establish your business, sit down a little bit more to think of scenarios. It will be for the stability of the company and even though you face certain problems, you always have a plan at hand.