Five Questions That Reveal How Prepared Your Business Really Is
If a technology disruption stopped your business tomorrow, how confident are you that your leadership team would know exactly what to do?
Most executives would probably say their organization is reasonably prepared. Backups are in place, cybersecurity tools are running, employees know who to call when something goes wrong, and there may even be a business continuity plan somewhere in the organization.
But preparedness looks different when systems are unavailable, employees can’t access critical information, and clients are waiting for answers.
September is National Preparedness Month, which makes this a useful reminder to look beyond the technology and consider how your organization would actually respond to a significant disruption. For professional services firms throughout Las Vegas and Southern Nevada, that doesn’t require an all-day planning retreat or a complicated exercise. A focused 15-minute conversation with your leadership team can reveal a surprising amount about how prepared your business really is.
Start with five questions.
1. If we stopped operating tomorrow, what would need to come back first?
Most businesses know which technology they depend on, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve established recovery priorities.
Imagine that several critical systems become unavailable at the same time. Your team probably can’t restore everything simultaneously, which means someone needs to decide what comes first.
For a CPA firm, that might mean restoring access to tax, accounting, and document management systems. A wealth management firm may prioritize client records and portfolio information. An insurance agency might need immediate access to policy and claims systems, while an engineering or consulting firm could depend on project files and collaboration platforms.
The technology differs, but the leadership question is the same: Which functions have the greatest impact on our ability to serve clients and continue operating?
Knowing that answer before a disruption occurs helps your technology team or IT partner focus recovery efforts where they matter most. Instead of treating every application as equally urgent, your recovery strategy reflects actual business priorities.
2. Who has the authority to make decisions?
Technology disruptions have a way of exposing unclear responsibilities very quickly.
During normal operations, decisions can move through familiar approval processes. During an outage or cyber incident, waiting for three people to weigh in before anyone acts can add unnecessary time to the recovery process.
Leadership should know who has the authority to initiate the response, who communicates with employees, who works with technology vendors, and who decides when clients need to be notified.
That doesn’t mean creating an elaborate chain of command. In fact, the simpler the process is, the better it tends to work under pressure.
For smaller professional services firms, one person may fill several of these roles. Larger organizations may divide responsibilities among executives, operations leaders, internal IT staff, and outside technology partners. What matters is that everyone understands the roles before they’re needed.
When ownership is clear, people can act instead of waiting for someone else to make the first move.
3. How would we communicate if our normal tools weren’t available?
Communication is one of those business functions we rarely think about until it stops working.
Email, Microsoft Teams, cloud phone systems, and other collaboration platforms are so dependable that most organizations naturally assume they’ll be available during an emergency. But what happens when the disruption affects the same tools your team normally uses to coordinate its response?
If employees couldn’t access email, where would they receive instructions? If your phone system went offline, how would clients reach you? If Microsoft 365 became unavailable, how would leadership communicate with employees and assign team responsibilities?
A backup communication plan doesn’t need to be complicated. It might involve an alternate messaging platform, personal contact information for key leaders, an emergency phone tree, or another predetermined method for sharing updates.
The important part is deciding in advance.
During a disruption, employees need a dependable source of information. Clients also need consistent communication, particularly if the incident affects your ability to deliver services or protect information entrusted to your firm.
Silence creates uncertainty. A clear communication plan helps preserve confidence.
4. What’s the one dependency we take for granted?
Every organization has something it depends on more than leadership realizes.
Sometimes it’s technology. A particular software platform may support several departments, or a single internet connection may be essential to nearly every business function.
Sometimes it’s a vendor.
And sometimes it’s a person.
Perhaps one employee understands a critical process that hasn’t been documented anywhere else. Everything works perfectly well while that employee is available, so the dependency never feels particularly risky.
Until they’re not available.
This is why operational dependencies deserve a place in business continuity planning. Leadership should understand what would happen if a critical system, provider, employee, or location suddenly became unavailable.
The goal isn’t to eliminate every dependency. That’s rarely practical.
The goal is to identify the dependencies that could create the greatest disruption and determine whether documentation, redundancy, cross-training, backup connectivity, or outside support could reduce the risk.
Often, simply asking this question reveals vulnerabilities that haven’t appeared on any cybersecurity report.
5. If something were to happen tomorrow, what would we wish we’d done today?
This may be the most valuable question in the entire meeting.
Imagine it’s tomorrow morning and your organization is dealing with a serious outage or cybersecurity incident. Employees can’t access the systems they need, clients are calling, and leadership is trying to coordinate a response.
What would you wish you had done yesterday?
Maybe you’d wish someone had tested the backups.
Perhaps you’d want an updated employee contact list.
You might wish critical processes had been documented, responsibilities had been assigned, or someone had verified exactly how long recovery would take.
For organizations managing sensitive client information, you might also wish you’d reviewed your incident response procedures, cyber insurance requirements, or client notification obligations.
Most of these tasks aren’t difficult. They’re simply easy to postpone when everything is working normally.
That’s what makes this question so useful. It turns preparedness from an abstract exercise into a practical leadership discussion.
Preparedness Is A Business Issue, Not Just An IT Issue
After 15 minutes with these questions, you’ll probably discover that some answers come easily while others require more discussion.
That’s the point.
A preparedness conversation isn’t designed to prove that everything is perfect. It’s designed to identify uncertainty while you still have time to address it.
For professional services firms, that uncertainty can have consequences beyond downtime. A disruption can affect client confidentiality, regulatory responsibilities, cyber insurance requirements, revenue, employee productivity, and the reputation your firm has spent years building.
Technology is certainly part of the solution, but preparedness also depends on people, processes, communication, and leadership.
The strongest business continuity strategies bring all four together.
Put The Meeting On Your Calendar
National Preparedness Month is a good reason to have this conversation, but preparedness shouldn’t be something leadership discusses only once a year.
Businesses change constantly. Employees join and leave. New applications are introduced. Vendors change. Client expectations evolve. Cybersecurity threats change. A recovery plan that made sense a year ago may no longer reflect the way your organization operates today.
At Orbis Solutions, we help professional services firms throughout Las Vegas and Southern Nevada understand how technology, cybersecurity, people, and processes come together when something unexpected happens. That includes identifying operational dependencies, validating backup and recovery strategies, clarifying responsibilities, and helping leadership understand where assumptions may be creating unnecessary risk.
You don’t need to predict every possible disruption.
You do need confidence that your organization knows what to do when normal operations suddenly aren’t normal.
Start with 15 minutes and these five questions. If the answers reveal uncertainty, a Business Continuity Assessment can help turn those gaps into a practical plan before your business has to put it to the test.
