Back By Shera Dalin; Post-Dispatch Disaster preparedness and recovery plans are time-consuming to create, but business owners should have them in place, no matter what size the company is. Tornadoes, fires, floods, hail storms, power failures and even corporate theft can befall area companies, said Albert Marcella, professor of management at Webster University and author of “Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery and Incident Management Planning: A Resource for Ensuring Ongoing Enterprise Operation.” Businesses without a plan have about a 20 percent to 30 percent survival rate after a disaster, Marcella said. That number drops to about 5 percent for small businesses. “You always have to have a ‘plan B’,” he said. Many business owners don’t prepare for several reasons. “It’s painful, because it’s time consuming,” Marcella said. “The business owner has to look at his or her risks.” For some companies, the greatest assets might be physical, such as a plant or equipment. For others, the most valuable resources could be customer lists or data. “I can replace an employee eventually, but I may not be able to recover that data. That could have a longer-term financial impact than losing an employee,” Marcella said. Lost data was the casualty for Diversified Foam Products, Inc. of St. Louis. The manufacturer’s plant burned Jan. 16, 2003, destroying everything. “We’ve learned some lessons (about) storing documents and information off-site,” said President Stanley Safron, who now keeps backup data at home. Owners should set a value for their assets and spend no more than that amount on protecting them, Marcella said. In the case of a full business continuity and recovery plan, the cost of creating and documenting the strategy can be $5,000 to $10,000. That figure rises to $70,000 to $100,000 for a large corporation, Marcella estimated. “The question they need to ask is can they afford not to do it?” he said. Some insurance companies give businesses breaks on their premiums for having such plans in place, he added. Because of the complexity, plans can take six to 12 months to prepare, he said. Elements include an alternative work site, known as a “hot site,” in the same city or elsewhere in case of a regional disaster, such as an earthquake. Other factors include an eight- to 10-member recovery team of essential employees, job descriptions for each of them in case some cannot get to work, a list of contractors who could help with outsourced work and an estimate of how long the company can function without its technology, services or employees. Maintaining a current list of employee home and cell phone numbers is essential, Marcella said. Keeping that list and a copy of the plan at the owner’s house in a protected place, such as a fireproof lock box, is also a good idea, he said. Business owners should give a floor plan of their offices to fire and police departments along with a list of any hazardous chemicals on site. Other factors to consider are designating recovery team members who are geographically dispersed and giving a copy of the plan to a trusted person who lives outside the region. “The distribution should be highly controlled,” he said, adding that only key people should have copies and perhaps only the sections that apply to them. Business owners also should consider calamities of the man-made variety. “A real disaster that most business owners don’t consider is a disgruntled employee,” Marcella said. Such a person could steal private information, such as employee medical records, Social Security numbers or customer credit-card numbers, Marcella said. Disaster Preparedness Tips: • Keep an updated list off-site of employees, their home and cell phone numbers. • Identify critical employees needed for ongoing operations – a recovery team. • Consider alternative transportation for workers who live across the Mississippi or Missouri rivers. Bridges could fail. • Train employees and their families on dealing with disasters. • Set up transportation plans for moving workers off-site and how to pay for it. • Have a calling tree to contact all employees. • Tell your staff which radio station will have announcements about the company. • Designate a spokesman to handle media questions. • Do a critical document inventory, such as business licenses, customer lists, contact lists, credit card numbers and credit card statements. Regularly update it. • Back up and store off-site original documents in a tamper-proof, locked box. Additional Resources and Sample Plans: • Disaster Recovery Journal: www.drj.com • Small Business Administration Disaster Planning: www.sba.gov/disaster/getready.html • American Red Cross Guide for Business and Industry: www.redcross.org This story may be available for an Adobe Acrobat PDF download. Click on the link below to visit the site download center. If a PDF is available, the file will automatically open in your browser.

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