How To Protect Yourself from Potential Business Risks

Here are a few things you may want to think about incorporating into your business to protect yourself from potential business risks in the future.

Setting up and running your own business can leave you open to a few potential business risks. If you apply for a job with an existing company and get it, you will have a certain degree of security.

Most contracts are relative to a certain amount of time, whether it is modest like just one year, or something more forward thinking like ten years. In either of those cases, you can have a reasonable expectation that during that period of time, you will have work to do and that you’ll be paid for it.

This sort of job security is not always perfect, but it is often enough to prompt people to take out massive financial commitments like a mortgage. There is the possibility that you could be let go or made redundant and since you have not contravened the conditions of your contract, you should be eligible to receive a compensation package. This will at least allow you to continue to run your household until you find another job.

In the UK, the conditions of redundancy are mandated by law and workers are guaranteed a statutory amount. If they think that they have been unfairly dismissed, they can also challenge the decision in the courts. If you were made redundant and do not think the circumstances were appropriate, you should look into your options. You may have legal recourse to challenge the decision. However, no such securities exist when you run your own business.

If your business does not do well, the only thing you can do is try to make it better. There is no money on which you can rely unless you hustle and make it yourself. This is one of the reasons that a lot of ambitious prospective entrepreneurs do not make it in the long run. Unless you have enough success in your first few years to be able to support yourself (assuming that you do not have sufficient funds to live on without working for a few years), you may find that your business is not sustainable.

The nature of success in business is such that it is different depending on the type of company in question. Some start-ups will have much bigger overheads and will therefore have to concomitantly make a lot more. Others will be more modest and can survive on less. However, one thing that every business has in common is the need to protect themselves, their employees and their assets. Life can be difficult sometimes, and if you are not vigilant, you can find yourself losing out. That is one of the reasons that successful business people think prophylactically. Unless you anticipate a problem, you may not be able to combat it as effectively.

Here are a few things you may want to think about incorporating into your business to protect yourself from potential business risks in the future:

In the UK last year, 46% of businesses were subject to cyber attacks. This percentage increased to 68% for companies who had more than 250 employees. A separate study found that 44% of British businesses only had basic defenses in place and that attacks cost the British economy a total of £34.1 billion in the last year. This is an awful lot of money, and if a small business has its data stolen or is subject to malware, it is not just a minor inconvenience that requires you to reboot your operating systems. It could feasibly shut down your business if the cost of repairing the damage is more than you can afford.

Professional IT Support

A cheaper option is to invest in professional IT support to protect your digital infrastructure. The theft of data is a particularly unpleasant problem because it does not just affect you. Your customers may then be attacked themselves, and the inconvenience of contacting their bank is enough to potentially dissuade them from trusting you again.

It is a PR disaster because lots of people are vulnerable to lots of types of cyber and financial fraud and opening your customers up to those risks demonstrates that you are not able to look after the information which they assumed you could be trusted with. Another important point is to make sure that your employees know what to look for when it comes to cyber attacks.

The same survey quoted above also found that in a third of the cases, employees were partly responsible for infecting computers. If they can better recognize what not to click, you could potentially save about £10,516 (or about $13,500) dealing with each incident.

However, not every threat that you will encounter will be exterior to your business. While your employees may not be malicious in their intent, the reality of modern society is that it is quite litigious. If someone who works for you, or a visitor to your office, suffers an accident and hurts themselves, you could be personally liable.

Lawsuits

There are so many lawsuits that claim negligence on the part of the employer in order to reach a cash settlement that they cannot be named here. However, it is real, and some people see it as a way to make money. The fact that it could be described as a perversion of the legal system and that these plaintiffs are robbing Lady Justice blind does not seem to deter some people.

As for what you can do to prevent it from happening, you first need to familiarize yourself with all of the state and federal laws that determine your obligations as an employer. Ensuring that you comply could be as simple as making changes to the bathroom or publishing the protocol on what to do in the event of an emergency, but if you do not do it, you could find yourself in a great deal of legal trouble.

Another way of somewhat protecting yourself is by registering your business as an LLC (limited liability company). This is intended to ensure that in the event that your company is found liable, your personal assets will not be subject to any compensatory or punitive damages. However, it is not a guarantee and to further understand how best to prepare yourself for any legal challenge, you should find a corporate lawyer in your area and explain to them the specific details of your business.

How To Protect Yourself from Potential Business Risks appeared first on Mompreneur Media