What breaks when someone is missing
Organising business continuity in a small organisation
Where to build in margin, and where it would be absurd to do so.
Objectives
- Identify critical resources: people, suppliers, tools, equipment
- Choose the appropriate form of redundancy: back-up person, stock, second supplier, degraded-mode procedure
- Cost a redundancy measure and compare it with the cost of a stoppage
- Accept the vulnerabilities you decide to keep
Programme
- Morning: Redundancy as practised by living organisms: Why living organisms waste, and what this teaches a business · Four forms of redundancy, and what each one really costs · Degraded mode: carrying on by doing less well, rather than stopping
- Afternoon: Deciding where to put the margin: Cost of a stoppage of one day, one week, one month: the calculation on your own figures · The single supplier: when it is a risk, when it is a choice · Your redundancy plan, costed, with what you choose not to protect
Prerequisites
Have an idea of your monthly turnover and fixed costs.
What you take away
A costed redundancy plan, and an explicit list of what you choose not to protect.