Risk mitigation: protecting your business despite the constant flux

The craziness of the crisis has led to constantly shifting goalposts for business owners, with conditions in a seemingly never-ending state of flux.
 
But one thing that any small business owner should never ignore is risk mitigation and making sure your business is protected from any number of scams that are doing the rounds, as well as the more common risks of running a business.
 
While this year has been more about staying in business and ensuring cashflow continues, there are still a number of ways to minimise your risk.
 
The big financial risks are clearly mitigated by insurance, however a recent study showed that while 87 per cent of business owners understand how important insurance is for them and their liabilities, 62 per cent of business owners don’t understand their insurance or aren’t sure if they are adequately insured.
 
My big tip for this is to first take a step back and look at the kinds of insurance you have in place. Do you have business insurance? Income protection insurance? And how does what you’re paying in insurance and the coverage that it provides compare to your current cash flow situation?
 
Make sure you are talking to your financial advisors, your clients and your suppliers about your financial situation as we come out of this pandemic year and ensure that everyone is understanding of each other’s situations. As we often say, communication is key.
 
When we’re talking about risks around technology and scams (such as email or SMS scammers), the most important first step is making sure everyone at your business is properly trained in what to do, or not to do. You can have the best online security going around, but if your employees don’t know not to click on dodgy links, it won’t help much.
 
The second tip is having software in place to stop the main forms of attack, and there are a number of good cyber security packages around to help with that.
 
And finally, it’s also important to do a regular backup of everything, so if your system is attacked and files get corrupted you are able to recover quickly. Don’t wait till the end of the year to do a back-up, make this a regular part of your business and stay one step ahead of the scammers.