Essential Business Safety Nets

It’s something you might not want to think about, especially not because of the associated costs. Still, there are business essentials that are not part of the value-add production line of your business. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the business of making cakes, making highly sensitive engineering plans, or providing straightforward marketing services. Every business needs to spend money on things that seem an absolute waste until something happens, and then you wish you had done it so much better. 

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

We are talking about business insurance, on-site security, information security and legal assistance. Any one of these topics will bore the life out of someone, but not having something in place when disaster strikes lead to headaches and increased financial costs.

Business Insurance

Let’s talk about business insurance. This can be many things but mostly provides cover for when something happens in and to the business premises. This could be an injury on-premises, fire/flood insurance, theft, liability and general insurance. Having an incident on-site is already taxing enough, let alone having to deal with the financial fallout which can be quickly considerable, even impacting the business’ bottom line. 

Make sure you get professionals to advise you on which insurances are needed and how you ensure that the insurance premiums don’t become a drag on business performance.

On-site Security

Then there is on-site security, which usually impacts aforementioned business insurance. Companies with security cameras, on-site (or remote) monitoring, certified locks and procedures normally get away with lower rates, due to a lower risk profile. Most managed buildings would provide something similar, but it’s usually down to the company to decide how much CCTV is used. 

Again, site security is not the most glamorous thing to think about, and the costs can rise quickly, especially if you pick everything on the menu and attempt to build a Fort Knox.

Information Security

Information security is something of the last decade (although it definitely existed before). When people in-the-know call it InfoSec it sounds quite techy, and it can be. InfoSec has all to do with the data you handle and how secure it is from other people snooping & copying this data. 

Think about the data you might send on emails within the company, but also to external destinations. Or those bigger files you use services like DropBox or WeTransfer for. Or that newsletter signup on your website, for which the email addresses are stored online. All of these things are subject to questions of security. They need an InfoSec specialist to look at and ensure your business and its customers are safe in.

Legal Support

The last thing, and usually the last thing on the list, is making sure you have legal assistance when needed. This could be for internal issues (think firing, complaints, harassment issues) or external. Legal professionals are usually expensive and require a significant outlay to get assistance from. 

By signing up to a basic form of legal insurance, you will at least get a service that is able to field the issues and separate ones that are standard and ones that do require further legal professional support. As with all the other things, these things will seem like a financial drag, but if something happens, you’ll be glad you took care of it.