Dealing With Disaster At Work

When you’re running a business, you have to be ready for when things go wrong, and the list of things that could go wrong is almost endless. From delayed goods from your suppliers, unexpected bills and price rises, to changes in in legislation, unexpected staff turnover and drop off in customer numbers, there are so many things that could derail your business you might find yourself overwhelmed before anything even looks like it could go wrong.

Today we’re presenting a short guide to dealing with disaster to help shore you up in difficult times.

Preparations

While you can’t be ready for everything, it’s important to have contingency plans for the more obvious and likely worst case scenarios.

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If your business rests on supplies from a single company, you’re exposed to a great deal of risk. If anything happens to that company, or the logistics firm making deliveries for you, your entire business could grind to a halt. Look at the recent problems suffered by KFC in the UK, when a mistake by a delivery company left most branches without any chicken!

In cases like this, it’s only responsible to research alternative suppliers and delivery firms. They might not be your first choice: they could well be options you considered and then passed over because the price was too high, for example. Don’t dispose of your 2^nd place suppliers and also rans! Keep the details as they are the very people you will need to step into the breach to keep the wheels turning when your usual suppliers run into difficulties.

Calling in the Experts

As a CEO and Founder you have to accept that you can’t be an expert about everything in your company. While the role forces you to generalise, you’re at your best as a specific expert on your product, your service and the structure you’ve built. By definition, you are not the best person for the job when something unforeseen appears: if you haven’t foreseen it, you don’t have the skills to deal with it.

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In cases like these consider contacting interim management companies, to bring in experienced professionals who are used to working in the short term and turning around crises. It’s not an admission of failure to get help from people who’ve built a career dealing with unforeseen problems, and as well as getting you out of your current fix, they can leave you with better processes to avoid such problems in the future.