News and Events

Autumn 2004

Planning for Emergencies

Does your family company have a contingency and recovery plan to manage operations in a crisis? Continuity planning is essential in any organization, especially in tumultuous political and economic times, notes Frank Cincotta, president of MTP Software, an enterprise software company located in Needham, Massachusetts.

Cincotta cites statistics from the National Fire Prevention Agency reporting that 43% of companies never reopen after a disaster and 29% close within three years of the event. He suggests taking the following steps to prepare your company for disaster or downtime:

People:

• Create a call list of all key employees, customers, vendors, distributors, utility providers and emergency service providers.
• Appoint an emergency response team that includes key employees from each unit.
• Develop a call tree or other notification procedures for your emergency response team, company managers and all other employees.
• Create an awareness program to teach employees what to do in an emergency.

Processes:

• Document all critical and time-sensitive business processes and ensure that there is a primary and secondary person in charge or them. Have a manual process as a backup for operations involving technology.
• Create an emergency response manual that highlights evacuation and succession procedures as well as where to turn for help, including state, local and federal agencies.
• Establish an alternative operating location that can be used if the primary site is inaccessible.
• Consider creating an alternative information technology (IT) operating location, as well.
• Identify alternative vendors in case your primary suppliers can't perform.
• Store inventory at more than one location.

Technology:

• Identify all critical IT resources required to keep important business processes running.
• Identify disruption impact and allowable downtime.
• Develop and document recovery priorities and sequence.
• Identify preventative controls to minimize outages. These should include uniterruptible power supplies and backup power generators.
• Create a comprehensive backup plan. Machines that store key documents should be backed up regularly.