4 Reasons You Need Business Continuity Planning

What happens if a natural disaster keeps all of our employees at home for days — or weeks. Meanwhile, your key services are hampered due to damage sustained at your office. How are you going to contact all of your employees — not to mention customers? What will be the most efficient ways to put the pieces of your business back together, following an emergency?

This is business continuity planning. Good business continuity planning should look at the business as a whole — with a goal to support business resilience. Business continuity describes a complete solution for backup and disaster recovery. A business continuity strategy will protect data on-premises in physical and virtual servers and in the cloud. Whether data is on servers or in SaaS applications, it needs to be backed up. Business continuity goes a step further and offers you the ability to restore your data, which is termed disaster recovery.

Whether a business is faced with a natural disaster, or a cyber-attack, strong business continuity practices will have you up and running in minutes, particularly business continuity solutions that leverage the hybrid cloud – guaranteeing a quicker restore time. The severity and length of business disruptions caused by any disaster can vary considerably. To be prepared for extended or permanent facility damage, businesses should maintain continuous off-site backup of data, applications, and server images, as well as have arrangements in place for re-routing incoming calls to an alternative site and/or to employees’ mobile phones. Data is essential for all types of organizations today, so ensuring access to applications and data following a disaster is critical.

Still, it’s just one piece of the business continuity puzzle. Evaluating your company’s ability to restore IT operations can be a good starting point for company-wide business continuity efforts. In fact, many business continuity planning efforts start by conducting a business impact analysis or risk assessment — these studies can reveal weaknesses in your organization’s ability to continue operations that go far beyond IT.

What are 4 reasons you need business continuity planning?

1. Downtime is really, really, expensive: If your employees or customers lose access to business-critical applications and data, there will be a direct impact on productivity and revenue. While this sounds obvious, many organizations do not consider the actual costs of downtime. Some modern business continuity products offer the ability to run applications from backup instances of virtual servers. This allows users to continue operations while primary application servers are restored. Choosing a business continuity solution aimed at reducing downtime makes good business sense.

2. Data backup alone is not enough — not nearly enough! You’d be hard pressed to find a business today that doesn’t conduct some form of data backup. But, what happens if a flood wipes out your primary and backup servers? Sending a copy of data offsite for disaster recovery should also be considered essential. Historically, this meant sending tapes to a secondary location or tape vault. As previously mentioned, modern business continuity products can run applications from backup instances of virtual servers, and some can extend this capability to the cloud. The ability to run applications in the cloud while onsite infrastructure is restored is widely considered to be a game changer for disaster recovery. As CEO, you don’t want yesterday’s backup technology. Backup and business continuity are not one in the same. Your business needs both — all the time.

3. Disasters actually do happen — and they most times are not natural! Not every disaster is broadcasted on news and weather channels. Most IT downtime is a result of common, every day actions like accidental (or even intentional) data deletion, damage to computer hardware and poor security habits. For example, a CompTIA study found that 94% of respondents routinely log into public wifi, in spite of security risks. And, 69% of this group accesses work-related data over public wifi. A ransomware attack or virus can halt operations just as easily as a tornado or a power surge. These disasters are typically a result of human error, which in unpreventable.

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4. Business continuity impacts everybody — especially your customers! Data is essential for all types of organizations today, so ensuring access to applications and data following a disaster is critical. But it’s just one piece of the business continuity puzzle. Evaluating your business’ ability to restore IT operations can be a good starting point for company-wide business continuity efforts. Good business continuity and disaster recovery planning should look at the business as a whole – with a goal to develop business resilience. In fact, many business continuity planning efforts start by conducting a business impact analysis or risk assessment—these studies can reveal weaknesses in your organization’s ability to continue operations that go far beyond IT.

Keep in mind, failure to protect your business from human error, hardware failure and/or natural disasters can be detrimental and impact every single stakeholder. Implementing a business continuity and disaster recovery plan will help you sleep a little better at night.

Source: https://smallbiztrends.com
Image Credit: Shuttershock




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Tips and Tricks for Planning and Delivering Your Business Presentation

Presentations are common in the workplace, but they aren't everyone's best friend. To some, delivering a presentation at work can feel more like a dreaded medical procedure than a chance to connect with and enlighten other professionals. However, there's often no avoiding the ordeal, especially as a business owner trying to establish your brand.

While you might think that great public speakers are born that way, anyone can develop strong presentation skills. Here are tips to help business owners better plan and deliver their presentations.

Planning

Every quality presentation requires in-depth planning. Here's how to do it.

1. Get to know your audience.

Before planning your presentation, make sure you know your audience. You'll want to understand their interests and needs, and what you can offer them. A good way to do this is to identify any issues they might have and finding ways to help them, said Ron Tsang, author of "From Presentation to Standing Ovation" (2016).

"If you understand your audience really well and focus on helping them solve an urgent problem, two things happen," he said. "Your audience will lean in to hear your presentation, and you will feel less self-conscious because you're no longer focused on your own nervousness."

If you know your audience, you might also anticipate any questions or concerns they might have and address them in your presentation. This will prove that you have done your research and are a credible professional in your field.

2. Understand your material.

Don't just study or memorize your points – thoroughly understand them so you can speak without the help of notecards or slides. Not only will you be more prepared for missteps or follow-up questions, but you'll feel more confident and capable, leaving no room for nerves to get in the way.

"Our brains work through association and the subconscious brain actually makes … [95] percent of decisions," said Melina Palmer, founder of The Brainy Business. "It relies on rules of thumb to make decisions and is more likely to take over when the conscious brain is overwhelmed, like if you are scared before/during a presentation."

If you store all your information in your conscious space, you'll be more prone to anxiety and failure, Palmer added. This can cause mistakes, stumbling over words and loss of confidence.

"When the conscious brain gets overwhelmed by fear, it will shut down," she said. "If your subconscious does not know what to say and you have not practiced enough, the chances you will forget something and get more flustered increases dramatically."

3. Rehearse your presentation.

If you're going to be speaking to people in a given industry, they'll likely understand more complex diction related to the field. If you're presenting to a group who doesn't have experience in the topic of discussion, however, you should plan to avoid niche terminology, understanding what points you'll need to explain in more depth.

Donna Grindle, founder and CEO of Kardon, advises using layman's terms in these cases. Rehearse your presentation in front of a child to see if they understand what you're explaining. Sure, you want to sound professional in your speech, but it should be simple enough for anyone, with any level of experience, to know what you're saying.

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Delivering

Now that it's time to deliver, take a deep breath and remember these tips.

1. Don't be intimidated.

Don't let your audience intimidate you. You are providing them with valuable insight that they likely are interested in learning. Be confident and professional, and deliver your message without worrying about being judged or ridiculed.

"While it is easy to think of the audience as a giant, scary, judging mob, in reality, the audience wants you to do well as much as you do," said Palmer. "Whether you are speaking to 10 people or 10,000, they want you to succeed, and they are rooting for you. Talk to them as if they are nice, kind people who want you to succeed, and give them the benefit of the doubt."

If someone doesn't seem engaged, don't take it personally or assume you're doing something wrong. You never know if someone is preoccupied with personal concerns, tired from lack of sleep, etc. Rather, see it as a reminder that your audience is human, and take the chance to connect with them. Relate what you are saying to the audience, bring up anecdotes from your own life, and be receptive to feedback and questions.

2. Follow your strategy.

Go into your presentation with a purpose – and make sure that purpose isn't "get it over with." Don't just write down what you want your audience to know the night before and then repeat it in front of them in a monotone.

"There is nothing that can be less interesting than someone who has slides filled with words and then stands up and reads them," said Grindle. "That is more like giving a book report in school. Provide bullets, charts, drawings, images, etc. to present your information using more than just words. Anyone can read a report without sitting through a presentation of it."

Follow through with your plan to engage your audience, no matter how nervous or doubtful you might feel. It can be tempting to do whatever it takes to get through the speech quickly, but you can't sacrifice passion and efficiency.

3. Be authentic.

Your audience wants you to be real; they don't want someone to stand in front of them and lecture them on the same topic for over an hour. Have a conversation rather than delivering a speech, making it as much about your audience as about you.

"When you are authentic and honest with the audience, they can tell, and they appreciate it," said Palmer. "This makes them more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt."

Authenticity also breeds connection, which should be your first priority.


"The whole point of public speaking is for you to connect with your audience and share what you know with them," said Grindle.


Source: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com
Image Credit: Credit: Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

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Turn Action Planning Into Business Results

I am a planner. As a mom of four small children, I have to be, in order for us to be (nearly) on time for all of our various commitments. Last Saturday morning for example, I had everything all planned out. I was going to take my second oldest to soccer while my husband took the other three to my eldest’s baseball game. After soccer (which is shorter than baseball), I was going to run to the grocery store. We’d all meet back up for lunch, get the two littlest down for nap, and then I’d take my oldest two off to cub scouts while my husband got stuff done around the quiet house.

It was a good plan. But, as is the case with most plans, it didn’t work out because it was never implemented. It rained. A child fell sick. And so, the plans fell by the wayside in the day-to-day chaos of our lives.

One of the Greatest Problems with Action Planning

The same can be true within your organization. You can have everything in place for action planning. Your cross-functional team has met, reviewed the data from your CX program, and identified the areas of opportunity. The team has developed a full-fledged plan to address an area of opportunity.

But then everyone goes back to their day job. Action plans are placed on the shelf, considered lower priority than getting the day-to-day work done. Change never happens.

A lack of follow-through is one the most frequent problems with any type of planning. An organization must have a structure in place to ensure that implementing the plan and following through with it is a priority.

Make Change a Priority

As part of an ongoing customer-centric strategy, your organization must be dedicated to improving the customer experience. It cannot be “as time allows.” It cannot be on an ad-hoc basis. Creating and implementing action plans must become routine.

This is not easy to do, although it is attainable with the right support and dedication. It requires Senior Level Support, Employee Accountability, and an Investment of Time and Resources.

Senior Level Leadership

Ongoing change efforts require more than just an acknowledgment by executives. Senior-level executives must take a key leadership role in driving a customer-centric culture and advocating for change throughout the organization.

Implementing change will require time and money – even for the smallest changes. A senior level executive will need to prioritize providing those resources for implementing changes over other potential uses. In cases of conflict, the senior level executive is responsible for choosing the solution that will be best for the customer.

Without senior level leadership, implementing change for the benefit of the customer may not get the prioritization needed.

Employee Accountability

Once you have senior leadership focusing on improving the customer experience, you need to also hold people accountable. Owners should be assigned to all action plans, big and small. This person will have ultimate accountability for the final product.

So how do you keep this person accountable and motivated? The same ways you would for any other goal or key task:

• Create a sense of ownership by involving them in creating the solution they are responsible for implementing
• Create buy-in by sharing with them the insights on customer experience and the problem so they can better understand it and empathize with the customer
• Hold them accountable through regular check-ins with leadership to follow-up on the action plans
• Ensure action plans are part of performance plans and reviews
• Recognize hard work through both peer to peer and management recognition

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Time and Resources

Finally, for change to occur, the organization must provide the necessary time and resources for implementation. At a minimum, the organization should provide slack time within employees’ workloads, so they can work on designing and implementing changes. Change may require small or large budgets as well, but these budgets, as well as the business case for that investment, should be clearly documented as part of the action plan. Action plans that don’t have a clear business case may not be funded – organizations do not fund change just for the sake of change.

Change Leads to ROI


Having these three components in place sets the stage for successful change through action planning. Case in point: Reliant. Reliant turned their customer feedback into actionable improvements and ultimately increased their NPS by 152%. They laid a strong foundation of senior level support combined with employee recognition and accountability, and then provided the necessary time and resources to implement their action plans. This paid off with highly satisfied customers and reduced churn. You can read more about their program success here.

Conclusion

It is hard to implement change. Creating a plan and just letting it sit is very easy. Organizations that are truly interested in improving the experience for their customers ensure they have senior leadership advocating for change, hold employees accountable for implementing action plans, and ensure employees have the time and resources to implement the plans. With these elements in place, organizations will be able to successful follow through on action plans, leading to big payoff and a greatly improved customer experience. As a parent, I’ve learned that things may not always go according to plan. But the lesson still remains, whether it be getting kids to a game or re-aligning your organization’s CX program, it is important to set yourself up for success, so the day-to-day chaos doesn’t overwhelm your plans.

Source: https://www.business2community.com


ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Strategic Planning: Act Now and Jumpstart Business in 2019

If you expect to jumpstart business in the new year, you have the next three weeks, period, to plan and strategize.

But it’s barely November, you’re thinking; there’s plenty of time for strategic planning. Right? Wrong.

In 21 days we will be knee-deep in Thanksgiving festivities. Depending on your traditions, this may mean massive grocery shopping, defrosting a turkey, a whirlwind house cleaning, fall decorations, the big dinner itself, cleaning once again, and the start of serious shopping, with Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

Then, December and party season strike, with gatherings of your business associates, co-workers, vendors, clients, distant relatives, neighbors, friends and probably even some people you don’t know very well. There are kids’ recitals and pageants, special concerts and television specials. And more shopping, wrapping and decorating.

This flurry of activity flows seamlessly into Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and after Christmas sales, followed by New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day with its football extravaganzas, more parties and more food.

Before you blink, it’s mid-January or possibly almost Valentine’s Day, and you’re scrambling to set a strategic plan, which you probably won’t be able to launch until March at the earliest. And one sixth to one quarter of the year has been lost.

Don’t be left behind.

Set aside time now, to think and plan. You may believe you can’t spare the time, but indeed, this brief window is your best opportunity.

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7 Steps to Jumpstart Business in 2019:

• Start now. You don’t have time to procrastinate.
• Review the past year. What has worked well? What was a disappointment? Take an inventory of wins and losses.
• Consider trends. What has changed, and what changes do you foresee for the future? What can you do to take advantage of these?
• Set goals. What exactly do you want to accomplish in the new year? Know where you want to be at this time, next year.
• What are your assets? What can you use to reach your goals? What else do you need? How will you acquire the things you need?
• Set specific tasks which will take you from where you are to where you want to be. Set deadlines, and make a commitment to meeting them.
• Take action. You don’t have to wait until January; anything you do now will put you further ahead of the game!

Take a deep breath, focus, and set your sights on your 2019 goals. Get ahead of the competition. Make your plans, set strategies and tasks, and move to jumpstart business on January 2nd!

Source: https://www.business2community.com

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!