40 to 60% of businesses don't reopen their doors after a catastrophic event. Meanwhile, 90% of small businesses that don't reopen within five days of the event fail within a year.

Yikes.

Don't let a fire or another catastrophe break your business. Instead, developing a business disaster recovery plan ahead of time can help you protect and insure yourself. With a plan in place, you can recover quickly instead of watching your business crumble.

Protect your business and set yourself up for survival with these tips for creating a disaster recovery plan.

1. Create an Emergency Response Plan

What's the first thing you'll do after a catastrophe occurs? To create your business disaster recovery plan, you first need to respond to the actual disaster. For example, where will you and your employees go to stay safe?

Part of your plan should include what to do to prevent the loss of:

• Assets
• Inventory
• Other property items

You'll also need a list of who to call and in what order. For example, employees should know to contact the authorities, the security team (if you have one), and you first thing.

In order to remain efficient, plan out specific responsibilities for everyone. You can also plan for a training session so employees understand their tasks.

Two in three small businesses don't have a written disaster recovery plan. By planning out these steps, you can respond to a disaster quickly and efficiently. Otherwise, recovery might take a while.

2. Create a Business Continuity Plan

Next, you'll want to continue operations as soon as possible. Your business continuity plan should include:

• A business impact analysis to understand how a disaster could impact the business
• Recovery strategies to lessen the impact
• Plan development, which includes workarounds for issues and responsibility assignments
• Testing to find weaknesses in the plan

Your recovery strategies should include IT concerns, such as data backups. Plan development should determine workarounds if you've lost essential IT infrastructure.

By working with a team like Be Structured, you can have an IT plan in place as part of your business disaster recovery plan.

3. Review Your Insurance Coverage

Review your current insurance coverage policy. Make sure there are no gaps that could prevent you from collecting in the case of a disaster. Protect your business from specific natural disasters that occur in your area, such as flooding, as well.

4. Stockpile Essentials

What essential items do your employees need following a disaster?

Create emergency kits for your employees that include water, first aid, cash, and chargers. Use backup systems so everyone can get back to work following a disaster as well. You might need a secondary source of power or communication system for the team.

5. Report Losses

Lastly, report your losses to the Small Business Administration.

They can provide you with access to resources or loans so you can get back to work.

Your Plan for Survival: How to Create a Business Disaster Recovery Plan

Protect yourself with a plan. With these tips, you can create a business disaster recovery plan for your team. Then, you can get back to work without letting a disaster slow you down.

Explore our Business Tech posts for more helpful tips.