Prepping for the Big One

You may be aware that over 33 coun­tries, in­clud­ing many in the Eu­ro­pean Union, have en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to pre­pare for ma­jor dis­rup­tions by keep­ing at least a three-day sup­ply of ba­sic sup­plies. While these na­tions may have dif­fer­ent rea­sons, the mes­sage is clear: we live in a more un­cer­tain, riski­er, and un­pre­dictable world. The “Big One” is not a once-in-a-gen­er­a­tion neg­a­tive event. It is any cat­a­stro­phe that can dis­rupt cash flow, cus­tomer ser­vice, op­er­a­tions, and sup­ply chains.

In ad­di­tion to the top haz­ards—geopo­lit­i­cal and mil­i­tary ten­sions, cy­ber­at­tacks on crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, and en­er­gy grid fail­ures—ex­treme weath­er events are an­oth­er risk. A new kid on the block is just get­ting start­ed: Su­per El Niño. Sci­en­tists ex­pect it to dis­rupt food and wa­ter sup­plies in north­ern South Amer­i­ca. WASA is al­ready strug­gling to dis­trib­ute enough wa­ter to cer­tain ar­eas. Be­cause dis­as­ter plan­ning is weak at sev­er­al lev­els of our so­ci­ety, a busi­ness that in­vests in pro­tect­ing its in­fra­struc­ture and sup­ply chains has a good chance of con­tin­u­ing with lit­tle dis­rup­tion.

Be­cause small firms are more vul­ner­a­ble to ex­ter­nal shocks giv­en their lim­it­ed re­sources and lack of spe­cialised ex­per­tise, you, as an en­tre­pre­neur, need to build a more re­silient or­gan­i­sa­tion in a low-cost way. This is not about be­ing a dooms­day prep­per—plan­ning for the end of the world, it is about in­cor­po­rat­ing risk man­age­ment in your op­er­a­tions.