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Business Planning for Emergencies
Natural disasters can have dramatic economic impacts on our community. All businesses are at risk of natural or man-made disasters and should be prepared for how a disaster will affect their business.
Impacts to your business can be:
- direct (such as stock loss from a power outage from a storm)
- indirect (such as loss of customers due to negative media from nearby bushfires)
Business resilience is the ability to adapt and respond to any disruption to your business. In order to build resilience to emergencies, it is crucial for businesses to plan, prevent and prepare.
Before an Emergency
Business Preparedness and Prevention
Business preparedness and prevention is the step before a disaster. Being prepared means knowing the risks your business faces so you can plan your response. Effective preparation means you can work out which risks you can prevent. You can act to reduce or mitigate any risks before a disaster occurs.
There are many helpful tools to assist you in creating an emergency plan to save to USB or the Cloud.
Helpful Links
- Disaster resilience for business toolkit | Business Victoria
- Prepare a risk management plan | Business Victoria
- Crisis planning template and checklists | Business Victoria
- Find the right insurance | Business Victoria
- Stay informed during a crisis | Business Victoria
- Tourism crisis management guide | Business Victoria
- Emergency management | Farm management | Agriculture Victoria
During an Emergency
Business Response and Continuity
The best thing your business can do during a disaster is to keep trading safely and put your Emergency Plan into action. Business continuity allows you to keep doing business until things return to normal.
During an Emergency
Business Resumption and Recovery
Business resumption and recovery after a disaster is important for the success and survival of the business. The faster your business can resume trading as usual, the less loss your business may incur.
Role of Economic Development and Visitor Economy Teams in Emergencies
The Economic Development and Visitor Economy teams;
- support businesses in emergency planning
- liaise with stakeholders to ensure that businesses are supported during an emergency
- aid businesses in the recovery of an emergency
- work with support agencies and organisations to co-ordinate recovery at a local level
Power and Telecommunications Outages
Power and Telecommunications outages can be caused by severe weather. In most cases, power will be restored quickly, however it can sometimes be longer depending on the nature of the disruption.
To minimise the impact of power outages on your communication activities, plan how you will communicate with staff, visitors, emergency services and suppliers if your mobile, landline and internet service are not available.
For addtional information, please view our power and telecommunicaions page.