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The resilient business winter check-list part 1

Watching the news of the floods in the South of England just think of the disruption to local businesses. And then think of the knock-on effect with power outages, road and rail lines blocked, staff unable to get to work, customers that can’t be contacted.

Now think of the impact of winter on your business -it’s enough to make you shudder with the cold of it!

But it needn’t be a disaster for your business. Work through the winter 7 check list and you should be able to effectively plan to minimise risk by anticipating how bad weather could impact the various areas of your business and its activity.

To-day customers are asking their suppliers what they are doing about planning for bad weather to ensure continuity of supply and service. This check-list exercise could help you both win and keep and customers – especially if your competitors have taken no action!

I’ve collected the items on the check-list over the years with input from many sources both businesses and buyers.

The “watch phrases” that come from the check-list are:

• Increase your resilience
• Plan for continuity
• Make it a team effort

1. Don’t wait –plan now

Depending when are where you are reading this, it may already be too late! The TV weather-lady may already be giving you a weather warning! But doing something is better than doing nothing so get on with determining a strategy that will help you protect your business and make it resilient.

Here are your prompts to consider:

What do we do that is essential to keeping our business going? Is there any of that activity we could time-shift or postpone in the vent of bad weather?

What do we need to think about regarding our people? Who are the most vulnerable to weather because of their location, health or other factor? What’s the least amount of people we need to provide our essential services and keep us going?

2. Are we capable of remote working?

Is there the possibility that, if weather is really bad, your people could work from home or even another base? This doesn’t mean you are going to encourage staff to stay at home but it does mean that you understand and have considered the resources and processes needed for remote working and how it can be both managed and controlled.

Your prompts to consider are:

Is our staff equipped to work from home, both in access to technology and also in knowing how to do it and what they will do? Where are our concerns?

What work could our people do from home or take home to do it? Are we putting ourselves at any risk here with documentation leaving the office?

How can we turn working from home into an advantage for us and get good productivity from say them having “away time for planning? Where is our upside?

Are our I.T. systems and processes truly in place so that people can get access to information and also share and work collaboratively?

3. Customers are key

The way you care for customers and maintain service to them in times of bad weather will form their opinion of you for years to come. Look after them well and they will be loyal – forget about them and they’ll soon forget about you!

This part of the check-list is all about communication with customers - talking to them in advance about any adverse weather preparations that may be necessary.

Your prompts to consider are:

With which of our customers do we have strict service level agreements (SLA’s) where we could experience severe penalties if we don’t meet standards. What do we need to discuss with them?

How can we use technology to maintain customer service? Have we considered:

A web portal with updated information and also with the ability for customer service calls to be logged and responded to by staff working remotely.

Do our key customers have the mobile and home numbers of their key account managers?

How will our customers judge us during this bad weather? How tolerant will they be and how can we WOW them?

Look for the next posting with the final four of the winter resilience check list.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by The Preferred Supplier .