In my book, Your Bigger Future, my final principle for healthy business finances looks at key information on protecting the business you’ve worked so hard to build. It only seems fitting to end this series by covering some valuable housekeeping.
If you’re running a successful company you’ll need (and most likely, want) to protect that business from any eventualities that may befall it. If we take physical disasters, such as floods and fires for example, quality insurance is required to ensure that your premises, IT infrastructure, vehicles and any other tools of your trade are protected.
Look after your people
But it’s not just the physical aspect of your business that needs covering. Your people are the most valuable part of your company and protecting them should be top of your agenda. In Your Bigger Future, I discuss the importance of obtaining professional financial advice when it comes to this because there are a range of products available, including to insure against the loss of a key person or director within your business.
If this unfortunately becomes the case, it could cause a lot of disruption to the day-to-day running of operations, as well as potentially impacting the long-term future of the company, so it’s worth paying for the best advice you can afford when it comes to this type of protection.
Further to this, health and safety protocols should be in place, fit for purpose and compliant with necessary legislation to protect your workforce and help mitigate any potential litigation.
Protect against crime
It’s likely that you will have one or more IT systems in place to run your business. Computers have become essential to the modern working world so protecting your systems is of paramount importance. Cyber crime is on the rise; it doubled in the five years to 2020, costing the UK over £87 billion since 2015[1]. Make sure that antivirus and security software is up to date and also that important files are backed up in case of a cyber attack, and preferably kept off-site.
It’s worth considering financial crime too. In 2016, HSBC reported that financial crime costs UK businesses over £50 billion each year[2]. More recently, UK Finance revealed that unauthorised financial fraud losses across payment cards, remote banking and cheques totalled £783.8 million in 2020[3]. With this in mind you may want to build a culture of awareness around these issue throughout your company. Those who are educated on financial fraud may be able to spot it in the unfortunate instance that your company has fallen victim to it.
Finally, a disaster recovery plan or business continuity plan is a good idea to have in place should potential emergency situations strike. This will help you get up and running again quickly if required.
Here at Brunsdon Financial, we’re experienced in providing valuable business protection in a wide range of sectors. If you’d like to learn more, please get in touch with us.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my final principle for healthy business finances. You can learn more about this topic by downloading the whole ‘Healthy Business Finances’ chapter from my book ‘Your Bigger Future’ free of charge here. Alternatively, you can visit the Your Bigger Future website for further information about the book.
