Disaster is an open-ended term. When disaster strikes at work, whether it affects 40 or 140,000 employees, you need to have a business plan. That’s what we recently chatted about with Michael Garza, Business Continuity Consultant at Toyota, whose business resiliency experience is built on a graduate degree in Occupational Safety and a certification in Safety Management Systems. Michael is your go-to for what to do in a disaster.

1: What Business Continuity Really Means in a Disaster w/ Michael Garza

Often times, companies completely miss-prioritize their business continuity strategy. They focus on the wrong items first, which means they spend more money, suffer harsher media impact, and disillusion staff. Joining us today is Michael Herrera, CEO of MHA Consulting. His company has been consulting companies on business continuity and disaster recovery for almost 20 years. His clients include various Fortune 10 companies, as well as NASA, Square, American Express, and others. He came on the  Continuity Forecast podcast and shared how to prioritize your business continuity strategy.

2: Prioritize Your Business Continuity Plan By Focusing On These 4 Items w/ Michael Herrera

If you’ve ever traveled anywhere, you know about weather. You know how it can dramatically shift your plans, and reshape your feelings of safety. Well next time you arrive at your destination safely, think of  Kevin Crowley. He’s the Sr. Analyst for Ground Safety Programs at JetBlue Airways. They serve over 100 cities in the Americas, and Kevin’s a large part of ensuring safe travels for JetBlue’s passengers. He came on The Continuity Forecast to share what strategies, tactics, and technologies he uses to keep the traveling public safe.

3: Say Thanks to This Guy Next Time You Land Safely: Meet the Man Keeping JetBlue Safe w/ Kevin Crowley

From natural disasters to cyberattacks, we’re talking risk mitigation and operational optimization with UPS veteran, and current CEO of GlobalMesh,&nbsp;Robert Marsh. Robert brings 20+ years of experience to this week’s episode of The Continuity Forecast as he shares with us how preparing for the worst can not only save your business during a crisis, but can save you in day to day operational costs.

#4: How Filling Your Risk Mitigation Toolbox Can Save You 20% in Operational Costs w/ Robert Marsh

When you meet Vicky McKim you start to second-guess your preparedness. She’s the director of risk management and business resilience at Arion. For many years, she’s seen firsthand the wild, unthinkable happen to companies who’d thought they had their continuity plan under control (even her own). That’s why she’s an advocate for environmental risk assessments. It’s more than just insurance, she says. Having insurance is one small component of it. While most businesses will take care to look at their financial and market risk, very few will consider operational risk. In other words, events that can put them temporarily, or permanently, out of business.

#5: Four Risks That Could Take Down Your Business w/ Vicky McKim

Whether it’s a natural disaster like a flood or hurricane, political unrest, or terrorism, the reality is that most every company at some point is going to have to face down some sort of disruption. So why has business continuity failed most companies? And what solutions are out there to help? On a recent episode of The Continuity Forecast, we sat down with Mark Armour, Director of Global Business Continuity at Brink's, for a discussion around where business continuity is falling short, the solutions, and the future of business continuity.

#6: Why Business Continuity Has Failed, and What You Do About It w/ Mark Armour

Do you know what to do if an earthquake suddenly strikes your city? Do your team members? Those questions ought to make you stop and think because lives are at stake. Michael Harding is the global program lead of the business continuity management team at ARI Fleet, the world’s largest private, family-owned fleet management company. He ensures that there are internal plans in place to manage response and return to operations following an incident. Today we’re going to focus on earthquakes. Earthquakes come without warning; they’re unforeseen, so it’s critical that your entire team understand exactly what to do if one strikes.

#7: How To Prepare Your Company To Respond and Recover For An Earthquake w/ Michael Harding

Think of everything that your company does on any given day. From finance to legal, from sales to HR, everything you do is done on computers. So what happens if there’s an outage of the computers that are used to run your business? Not just in your office, but at your data centers or server farms? Can you get your data back? Find out as we chat with John Jackson&nbsp;Executive Advisor and Co-Founder at Fusion Risk Management. &nbsp;

#8: Plan Now or Pay Later: Why You Need an IT Disaster Recovery Plan w/ John Jackson

Mike Tyson said everybody has a plan till they get hit in the face. What’s true in boxing is true in business continuity: You never quite know what it’ll be like. If you have the right people in place, you can get through it effectively. However, strategic planning is very important. Greg Holdburg is the Manager of Disaster Recovery Services at S1 Corporation. His role is to help businesses develop their continuity plans, or help companies create them from scratch. Greg joined me on The Continuity Forecast podcast to talk about how companies should proceed when they experience a crisis, how to notify employees, how to deal with one of the worst kinds of crises, a hurricane, and how to avoid a double disaster.

Earth Networks