Continuity Is Dang Important, Here’s Why
The workflow of the business is like the blood pumping through the body. When it stops, serious problems start to arise. You start losing money, missing deadlines, and letting people down. Occasionally, you can allow that. But if your business is at risk from poor continuity, it will reflect in an unprofessional operation. So, we’re going to look at the different risks to your continuity and how you deal with them.
Distraction
‘Work interruption’ is a term that’s most commonly used to describe the very real risk of distraction in the office. There are two primary ways to deal with it, as well. For one, you should keep an eye on whether employees are properly motivated. Get them engaged and they’ll be less likely to distract themselves. Blocking distracting websites from your network can also take care of that. Then you need to ensure there’s a proper system for requesting help from people. Particularly, people need to learn which tasks must be prioritized so they’re not wasting time jumping from one to the other.
Technical problems
The most common, and most annoying, risk outside of distraction comes down to the IT in the office. If you have an elaborate IT system, then it may require IT consulting services to watch it for any problems. Proactive maintenance and monitoring is the method most businesses should consider. Don’t just be reactive, but take the initiative to look at potential triggers and plan improvements to the system to get rid of them. The more proactive you can afford to be with your IT, the less likely you’re going to have to be reactive.
Natural disaster
Not all of your communicative problems will be down to an IT system, however. The environment and the weather all play a big part in taking your communications down. If you’re about to start an important teleconference or finishing up a vital email, this can be a disaster. Sometimes, there’s little you can do to control it. But not always. Using a virtualized phone service instead of an analogue one, for instance: this means you can keep making calls even when weather affects the phone lines to your office.
Get some backup
It’s not just your phone lines you can seek an alternative to. Sometimes, your precautions just aren’t enough. Your continuity will suffer a break. But with the right backup, you’re prepared to get things back online as soon as possible. For example, consider diversifying your internet connection options. When one line goes down, you could have a hot-spot waiting to replace it, or a USB dongle for your computer. If the power’s out, a backup generator could get you right back up again. Even if your system loses that all-important data, you should always have physical and Cloud-based backups to keep you right.
There are risks to continuity in business from all kinds of angles. Your technology, your people, and your management skills can all contribute. We hope we’ve given you some ideas of how to sort them out.
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