Nah, it will never happen – Oh ya?

9/11, Enron, Madoff, FTX and Covid are just a few examples of events that I bet were not fully planned for by the business community.  What happens to your organization if one of these events happens, if the leader of your business passes away or a key facility is destroyed by a natural disaster or a fire?    Unfortunately, I read stories about these types of events on a regular basis. 

As a business leader, do you have a business continuity plan in place?  Of course, you can come up with “what if” scenarios.  However, what do you do when an unthinkable tragedy occurs?  Below are some helpful questions to consider if you don’t have a business continuity plan in place:

1. Who will write up the business continuity plan? 
2. What will be the emergency scenarios you want to address?
3. What will be your business responses to those scenarios and who is in charge of them? 
4. Who is the backup to that responsible person?
5. How will you test your business continuity plan?
6. How will you adjust the business continuity plan for things you missed?
7. How often will you revisit the business continuity plan and update it?

The key thing to remember is that something is going to happen that you do not expect.  The more familiar your team is with the business continuity plan, the faster your business will be able to recover.  You may want to engage your professional business advisors in this process as well. 

Below are some other helpful articles:

• How And Why To Create A Business Continuity Plan (forbes.com)
• Taking A New Look At Business Continuity Planning (forbes.com)
• Put the focus on business continuity planning | Security Magazine
• Do You Have a ‘Business Continuity Plan’? (entrepreneur.com)

Other items of interest:

• RKL’s Latest Insights
  • SECURE Act 2.0 Key Highlights for Retirement Savers | RKL LLP (rklcpa.com)
  • The Return of the State Small Business Credit Initiative | RKL LLP (rklcpa.com)
• Cybersecurity: A C-Suite Priority | Stambaugh Ness (2/21/23; 2pm-3pm)

As always, please don’t hesitate to email myself (jsanders@mpl-law.com), Andy Miller (amiller@mpl-law.com), Christian Miller (cmiller@mpl-law.com), Erik Spurlin (espurlin@mpl-law.com), Brad Leber (bleber@mpl-law.com) or anyone in our office with questions or comments.   

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