There are a number of different traits you’ll need to become a successful business owner. You’ll need to be innovative, coming up with unique products, services and business ideas. You’ll need to be positive and optimistic to push your company forward through difficulties or struggles. You’ll need to be determined and dedicated to put in the amount of work it takes to get things up and running. You’ll need to be curious and inquisitive to constantly look into how you can improve and what steps you can take next in order to continue along your path of success. The list goes on. One trait that many people forget to associate with successful business owners, however, is wariness. Wariness can ensure that you don’t act too quickly or harshly and can ensure that you take the right steps to protect your company against any damage or disrepute. Right now, business owners have learnt to be more wary than ever. The coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic posed the world with a serious problem that many of us had never before faced in our lifetimes. We learnt that circumstances can quickly change and stability can be pulled from under our feet with little notice. We had to learn to adapt to be able to persevere through new regulations, guidelines and even extreme lockdown periods. We learnt that threats can come out of nowhere – and that they didn’t even need to be directly tied to your own business or industry to have a devastating impact and consequences. Now that many of us have learnt to look out for dangers, we’re deciding to be a little more wary and careful, even now that life is slowly returning to normal. We’re looking for new ways to protect our businesses and new measures we can take to keep things as safe and secure as possible. If this interests you, here are just a few things you can do to keep your business as protected as possible!
Business Insurance
The first area you might want to take a look into is business insurance. Insurance is basically a policy you will take out with an insurance provider, where you pay monthly premiums in exchange for them vowing to cover you with a payout should the thing you want to protect yourself against happens. We’re all familiar with insurance in our day to day lives. Most of us have a number of insurance policies to protect our personal assets and things that are important to us. We have home insurance or a home warranty to protect the properties we live in. Should they be damaged – through fire, flooding, the elements, natural disasters or anything else, we’ll be covered and it will be repaired or replaced. We have contents insurance to protect the personal belongings within our houses. If they’re stolen, broken or otherwise damaged, they’ll also be replaced. We have life insurance so that our dependents and nearest and dearest receive a payout should the worst happen and we pass away. We have car insurance to drive legally and protect ourselves and others while we’re on the roads. We have appliance insurance so our appliances can be repaired or replaced should they break down. The list goes on and on. But many of us don’t adopt the same approach to protecting our businesses. At the end of the day, businesses face many threats and it’s important to insure yourself against them. Here are a few different policies that are available for you to consider.
Commercial Property Insurance
Let’s start with commercial property insurance. Chances are, no matter how small your business may be, you have some sort of commercial property that you deal with. If you run a brick and mortar store, you’ll have the store itself. You might have office space for your employees to work from. You may have a factory where your manufacturing takes place. You might have a warehouse for storage of your stock and goods. Whatever commercial property you have, it’s of the utmost importance that you protect both the commercial property and its contents. This will ensure that should something happen to the building, you will be reimbursed for the value of anything lost. Remember that commercial properties face all sorts of threats, from fire to vandalism and natural disasters, such as flooding, broken windows through hail, trees falling onto properties and more. You don’t want to experience significant loss and potential financial ruin should anything happen to your commercial premises. So, browse the market for relevant policies!
Professional Liability Insurance
Another form of insurance that you should take into serious consideration is professional liability insurance. This is a form of insurance that goes by various other names, so don’t be all too surprised or confused if you hear people referring to it as “indemnity insurance”. Professional liability insurance is an insurance policy that will effectively protect you in any legal cases where someone accuses you (or you are found to be at fault) for matters such as misjudgment, malpractice or errors and omissions. It is of the greatest importance that you get this form of insurance if you provide customers and members of the public with any form of expertise, advice or similar service to customers or clients. Should you give bad advice, you will be protected. Your policy should pay out for any legal costs and any compensation that someone claiming against you may be awarded.
Product Liability Insurance
Selling products to the public? You’re going to need product liability insurance too. This insurance policy will ensure that you are protected if your products somehow harm or damage anyone who purchases them. It is an essential for any business offering products, no matter how well they may have been tested and no matter how seemingly safe they may seem. It will protect you from damaging costs should worst case scenarios arise.
Gadget Insurance
Chances are you use a fair number of gadgets in your day to day work – and if you have any employees, chances are that they do too! At the end of the day, we’re living in a technological age and a huge amount of work is carried out on laptops, desktop computers, tablets and even smartphones. Without these devices, productivity would take a nose dive and you and your staff wouldn’t be able to get your work done effectively. So, make sure to take a good quality gadget insurance policy. This will ensure that any broken, lost or stolen devices can be quickly repaired or replaced and you and your staff can get back to work as quickly as possible.
Cybersecurity
Another major way that the world has changed throughout the pandemic is that many businesses have gone remote. Those who can work from home were encouraged to work from home in a bid to slow and reduce the spread of the virus. While this may have been a difficult transition for some at first, many employers and employees have found that remote working simply suits them better! For employees, working from home has meant being able to cut out the time consuming, expensive and tiring commute to and from work. They haven’t had to pay for parking. They have been able to use their own facilities, such as toilets and kitchens throughout the work day, resting assured they will be in a good state and condition. They’ve been able to wear more comfortable clothing. For employers, not having to pay for a commercial premises and associated overhead has meant reduced operating costs. One threat that has come hand in hand with this, however, is cybersecurity threats. Cybercriminals grew aware that more people are working from home and are relatively unfamiliar with cybersecurity practices, and have launched more attacks. Protecting your business against cyber threats is important. So, here are some steps to achieve this!
- Train your staff – the first and most important step you can take is to train your staff. The more they know about cybersecurity and current threats, the more aware they will be and the less likely they will be to fall for attacks, such as phishing emails.
- Have a VPN – having a virtual private network, or “VPN”, for your staff to connect to can help reduce chances of cybercriminals gaining access to your system. A good IT company will be able to help you to install this.
- Have strict device policies – make sure that your staff aren’t using your devices for personal browsing. Ensure that they are only using it for work purposes while accessing approved sites, programmes and apps.
As you can see, the threats facing any business are pretty varied. But no matter how many there may be, you need to prioritise protecting your business from all angles. This will help you to reduce costs, maintain a positive reputation and generally thrive. Hopefully, some of the information above has helped to make you aware of some potential threats, as well as saving you any issues in the long run.
