Business Point

Businesses can be susceptible to many risk factors including interest rate or price increases, your competitors’ activities, injuries through hazards in the workplace, skilled staff leaving, natural disasters or terrorist activities. Managing those risks is an important part of running your business.

Risk management is a systematic process of making a realistic evaluation of the true level of risks to your business. Before risks can be properly managed they need to be identified - you can begin with these questions:

• What can go wrong?
• What can we do to prevent it?
• What do we do if it happens?

There are standard procedures and processes to handle risk management in business. Standards Australia has developed a Standard, AS/NZS 4360:1999, Risk management that outlines procedures and processes to implement.

A good plan is to develop a risk register to document each potential problem, its level of seriousness, what is required to fix it and who will fix the problem.

NSW Small Business has developed a comprehensive guide to risk management for small business.

An Emergency Management & Recovery resources package, available at business.gov.au/emergency, contains important information, checklists and a template which helps you with developing an emergency management and recovery plan.

You can also download MyBizShield iPad app to create a customised emergency management & recovery plan, receive prompts and handy tips while creating your plan and gain access to your plan anytime, anywhere. To install the app, simply visit the App store on your iPad, search for MyBizShield and click install.

For information on assessing and minimising the risk of terrorism on your business, visit the Information for Business page on the Australian National Security website.