How To Reduce Your Share Of The Next Sandy $100 Billion Blind Spot
Sandy: A $100 Billion Blind Spot
By Gary Patterson, CPA, Firestorm Expert Council Member and Author
I trust you were fortunate this time. That Sandy had little or no impact on your business or life. However, for far too many others, Sandy has struck their business or life devastating blows, particularly on the Eastern US.
What can you learn from this tragic event moving forward to at least reduce your likelihood of future financial, physical or emotional loss, or ideally see an exposure that your solving now creates a business opportunity?
The first realization may be that Sandy was a foreseeable billion dollar blind spot. (In fact my recent research suggests that on my blind spots scale™ from 1 to 10, this is level 3 in the real blind spots category.)
Why? People could see the issue (hurricanes happen every year), but the Mid Atlantic and New England region felt the likelihood of a storm impacting THEM was very remote.
History suggests this $100 Billion blind spot was clearly visible at least as a $5 or 10 Billion blind spot. Major hurricanes periodically have struck the region when population was less.
To eliminate or reduce the likelihood that your life or business could be ruined as a result of a reasonably foreseeable mere million dollar blind spot, truthfully and consecutively answer these three questions:
1. How well do you and your board know the 3 key issues which could sink your company?
2. When was the last time you updated that strategic list?
3. What are the metrics you use to evaluate your capability to manage those 3 key issues?
What issue that could easily impact you next year are you ignoring until a better time to build infrastructure of systems or processes, create and test that crisis management or business continuity plan, or create or upgrade an independent enterprise risk management assessment?
If the answers to any of these strategic risk management questions create an uncertainty or gnawing concern or generate the idea for an opportunity you might exploit, call us. Maybe we can help.