Businesses

Businesses need to do emergency planning to ensure that they stay in business regardless of what may occur. Most business leaders already do some emergency planning. They understand that a fire could damage or destroy their facilities or dangerous conditions could injure employees. That's a good start. But all businesses, large or small, need to go beyond conventional risk management.

Continuity of operations planning, or COOP, helps business leaders protect their organizations against any kind of disaster. This approach involves consideration of ways to protect your employees, records and sources of supply, in addition to facilities.

The US Department of Homeland Security has developed a variety of publications to assist business leaders in emergency planning. That material is available at the following site: Ready Business.