Build a strong workforce
1. Delegate responsibility to others as your business grows. Running an expanding business single-handedly will limit its potential and eventually spread your time too thin.
2. Train staff to deputise if a key person is absent or leaves the business.
3. It is important that recruitment includes background checks, so be sure to upgrade your practices.
Check emergency procedures
4. Ask the owner of the building you work in for details of checks on fire, floods and other building-related risks. You don’t want to risk an excess of loss on the information or equipment that you keep in the building.
5. Run workshops or tests to train you and your employees about potential building risks. Appoint officers who are responsible for training and emergency procedures.
Protect against fraud and cybercrime
6. Check that your IT systems are protected against the latest threats – cyber criminals and fraudsters are increasingly focusing on small businesses.
7. Book your staff onto training courses, so they can recognise fraudulent attempts to obtain sensitive information, such as phishing attacks, and the dangers of using their own devices.
Take stock and forecast
8. Audit your customers and check for signs of late payment, such as erratic or partial payments and only settling smaller invoices.
9. Assess your market and keep tabs on the performance of competitors.
10. Forecast your cash flow for the next 12 months.
11. Insure yourself against late or non-payments with trade credit insurance .
Make it a yearly habit
12. Effective business risk management needs to be regularly reviewed. Reassess every 12 months as threats, risks and changes on a global scale evolve.
