Funny thing about insurance. It’s the only purchase we make that we want to be a waste of money. We pray we don’t see a return on our investment. We give our money away and hope to never see it again.
But that doesn’t mean insurance has no value. Insurance has one overwhelming benefit that cannot be calculated on a spreadsheet. It lets us sleep well at night knowing we have all of our bases covered.
It’s the same for a growing business. There are three documents every growing business should create that ideally will have no monetary ROI. Because the hope is, just like insurance, they are never needed. These three documents are like an insurance policy for a growing business. So, what are these three documents?
The first one is the Business Continuity Plan. (Sometimes it’s a Business Continuity – Disaster Recovery Plan). The idea behind the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is straight forward. Think of all the things that could bring your company unexpectedly to a complete halt, and then decide ahead of time what you’ll do about it to get unstuck.
What if your business was without power for a week? Or the building burned down? What if your call center was suddenly overwhelmed with calls? What if a key person in your company died? The time to think about these things is not right after they happen. That’s what the Business Continuity Plan is for.
The second of these documents is the Information Systems Security Plan. It’s like the Business Continuity Plan only for your data, which for some companies, is their business. Among other things, the Information Systems Security Plan (ISSP) requires businesses to think about things like security polices, security training, access management, data backup and protection.
The last of these three documents is the Risk Management Plan. (Sometimes it’s a Risk and Opportunity Management Plan). Like the BCP, the idea here is to brainstorm all the things that could negatively impact your business (although not necessarily bring it to a halt).
What if someone drops a law suit on your desk for patent infringement tomorrow? What if a new technology unexpectedly makes yours obsolete? What if Amazon suddenly becomes your competitor? That’s what the Risk Management Plan (RMP) is for. Think of it as the Plan B for your worst nightmares.
The real value of these documents is not that they exist. Their real value is the discipline they instill in an organization to create them. It requires the business to take the time to think through all the uncertainties and then to address them.
Of course the challenge for a growing business is they usually don’t have the time to “buy” the insurance that these three documents provide. They either don’t have the staff, or the staff they do have is too busy to create them.
If you’re a growing business and need the insurance these three documents provide, click the button below and let’s see if we can help you sleep better at night.