Running a business can be risky. Yet there are things you can do to minimize risk. Read on to discover what they are.
Healthy and safety issues
As the leader of a business, you have a moral and legal duty to ensure that your employees and customers come to no harm while working at your premises or under your direction. This is why OSHA or occupational health and safety as it’s otherwise known was created.
Indeed, following the regulations that OSHA set out for employers is the best way to protect both your customers, workers and yourself. This is because they set out guidelines on safe working practices in a range of environments, including high-risk ones such as medical and construction.
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Of course, following the basic ideas of using clear signage, always providing the right protective clothing and equipment is crucial too. Additionally, regular training for employees on how to work in the safest way possible is vital to ensuring their wellbeing in the long term.
Getting sued
One of the biggest worries businesses have about health and safety issues, aside from injury, is that they will be held responsible and be sued for damages in court. Indeed, there are many instances where a company may be sued and not all of them are related to physical injury and can be concerned with harassment, discrimination, professional mistakes, and wrongful termination instead.
The best way to protect against these risks is to make sure your business has adequate insurance coverage. Indeed, it’s not only a matter of getting the correct type of insurance but also making sure you are covered to the right level as well.
Recruitment and retention
A huge risk to many businesses is losing vital members of staff. This is because it can result in a whole host of problems such as loss of productivity, a fall in morale, and even threatening customer loyalty. After all, when a top salesperson leaves, the customers with whom they have built a good relationship tend to follow.
Additionally, the extra work that is put onto the colleagues of the person who is leaving to cover for them can create a great deal of resentment, and in some cases start a chain reaction of valuable members of staff leaving your firm.
With that in mind, it’s a good idea to have systems in place that mean you are adequately covered if someone does decide to lead. The first of these is to make sure no one employee holds all the vital information and experience to complete a task. That means investing in shadowing and training time for others, so your business can continue to function even if the original person leaves.
Also, investing in recruitment and retention is a good idea. This is because it can often cost your business a great deal more to find someone new to fill an open position than just upping the benefits of the people that currently work for you. The idea is that the more attractive you make their current position, the less likely they will be to leave.
Finally, to prevent a domino effect if someone does leave, be sure to invest in temporary workers to fill the gap. Then all of the responsibility of picking up the slack won’t be placed on the other loyal people that have stayed.
Cash flow problems
Another common major threat to business, issues with cash flow. This is such a problem because, without the money to buy supplies, pay wages and keep the lights on, your business can very quickly grind to a halt.
One of the most common situations that can cause issues with cash flow is clients paying their invoices late. Of course, this can be tricky because you won’t want to miss out on any repeated business or jeopardize the relationships you have forged with them. However, at the same time, you also need to access the value of their outstanding invoice as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, there is a solution here, and it’s invoice factoring. This is when you sell the invoice debt to an agency that pays you a proportion of what is owed. Then when the customers do pay, the agency retains the rest of the value of the invoice. The great thing about invoice factoring is that you can do it without the customer having to know anything about it, which means your relationship and any repeat business is not at risk.
Cyber threats
While using computers and the internet provide many advantages and opportunities for businesses, there is no denying that they also leave them vulnerable to many threats. Of course, the best way to safeguard against these types of threats is to make sure that your business’s cybersecurity is as robust as possible.
At a more basic level, this means making sure you have a secure network at your premises, for your employees to access while they work. You can even provide a VPN for staff that work from home or on the move.
Updating software regularly is also a must as this ensures that any vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers are plugged.
On the more advanced side of things making sure that you choose secure cloud provision for storage is vital, so be sure to check the online and onsite security protocols your provider has. Also, when it comes to transferring confidential data from one system to another, using a hybrid SaaS solution like Media Shuttle can is the best approach. The reason for this is the blockchain technology they use to maintain security during the transfer process.
Increasing costs
Finally, another potential threat to your business that you should not ignore is the increasing cost of operating. Unfortunately, the cost of basics such as energy, rent, supplies and wages all rise along with inflation and that means the cost of running your business can sharply inflate too.
Of course, with too steep an incline, your company will struggle to make any profits, which could endanger its existence.
Happily, there are several actions you can take to help offset the increase in operating costs, including
- Renegotiating your supplier rates (remember that bullying it bulk can help reduce the cost of each unit)
- Using energy more efficiently (turning off lights and equipment when not in use etc).
- Offering benefits rather than paying an increase to your staff (which can be bought at a reduced cost)
- Take out a longer lease in return for a decrease in monthly rental costs.