insideKENT Magazine Issue 29 - August 2014 | Page 153

BUSINESS DISASTER RECOVERY… HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT...? HOW DO YOU COPE WITH RISK? IN PARTICULAR, BOTH DISASTER RECOVERY AND BUSINESS INTERRUPTION? I’m only asking because this June, ASOS, the online fashion retailer, experienced a fire at its Barnsley warehouse. ASOS estimated that 20% of its stock had been affected by the blaze, but what was worse was that its website was down from the Friday up until 2am the following Monday morning. Some good news for ASOS was that it had insurance cover for business interruption and stock loss; the bad news, to my mind, was the outage on its retail portal. There is a decent brand loyalty there, but as consumers, we are fickle, and if we cannot have it now we actively seek substitutes and those substitutes may very quickly become our brand of choice. As a business owner, it is vital that you have both a risk management plan, including disaster recovery. The benefits of active risk management plan include: • Identifying financial impacts of business risk, e.g., failure of suppliers to deliver stock on time, every time • Identifying the incidence of business risk, e.g., if the supplier cannot deliver, how quickly can I get an alternative to keep my offers flowing to the customers? • Identifying where we can take more risk, e.g., as an entrepreneur, you are a risk taker. Are there risks where you can spot a sales opportunity? • Work together with your IT team to develop a backup response, e.g., how quickly can you get your online system up and running due to outages? In summary, life happens. We don’t always know what is going to hit us and when, but having a plan and a response can lessen the impact of a “Fire in the hole” going unheeded. In respect of disaster recovery, some of the considerations may be how quickly can you get up and running again if your: • Store floods • IT system goes down • Delivery driver is off sick As for some helpful pointers in managing risk and disaster recovery, how about the following: • Work together with your insurance broker to ascertain the level of cover required for both business interruption and stock loss • Work together with your accountant to develop and monetise both a risk management and disaster recovery plan 153 If you would like any more information about Wilkins Kennedy’s services, please contact Ian McIntyre on 01233 629255 or [email protected]. www.wilkinskennedy.com