09/ 20/ 2006
by Lena Basha
Scott Newman went to work like it was any other day. Sure, a blizzard had blown in the night before, but this was Massachusetts. A blizzard still meant business as usual for Newman, the owner of Holbrook, Mass.-based US Markerboard. But when Newman arrived at his office last January, he found a furniture truck wrapped around an electrical pole outside his front door. His office was without power, and with a lingering snowstorm, there was little chance electricity would be restored that day.
Shutting down for the day wasn't an option. Just weeks into a partnership with Amazon.com, US Markerboard had to field calls and online orders from customers around the country. "To everyone else in the country, there was no reason to be closed," Newman says. "It was our responsibility to our customers to be up and running."
And so two hours after arriving at work that morning, Newman sent his 15 employees home--to work. Soon they were taking calls, answering e-mails and processing sales from their homes.
Working remotely--whether for a day, a week or even a month--and doing it successfully takes some forethought, Newman says. You have to identify what you need to operate your business remotely and then provide those critical resources to key employees.
Since files were stored on a third-party server not affected by the power outage, Newman and his employees only needed phones, e-mail access and Internet connections. While working remotely wasn't ideal, "it did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was keep us up and running for the day," Newman says. "And most importantly, we were able to handle our customers' needs."
Anytime, Anyplace
These online services put your business' important data at your fingertips, no matter where you are:
- Data Deposit Box--Designed specifically for PCs, this online backup software detects changes to any document you previously tagged. When you make a change to one of your selected documents, the software immediately saves it to a secure backup center.
- Hyper Office--This Web-hosted solution allows businesses to use its services for everything from e-mail to contact lists and document management tools. Retrieve your data in a few clicks from any computer.
Business As (Almost) Usual
Consider these three tips to minimize the downtime between "closed" and "back in business"
- Back it up: Sure it takes a few more minutes, but backing up your data every day is the best advice Scott Newman has for other small-business owners. "And make sure you don't leave your backup disk at the office."
- Team up: "You run your business differently during a disaster," Newman says. That's why he created teams: One was in charge of answering the phones, while the other responded to e-mails. This system, he says, "made it a lot easier to solve problems immediately."
- Improvise: Despite planning, the unexpected is sure to pop up in a disaster situation. When Scott Newman realized that two of his employees were affected by the power outage as well, he scrapped their team assignments.
Web Extras
Find everything you need to know about planning for an emergency in your small business in the "Disaster Planning" section of www.NFIB.com/toolsandtips.
