“Mmmm. That went well!”

Does Covid-19 mean there’s no point in planning anymore?
 
An accountant, who’s a friend of a friend, was taken seriously ill at the start of the pandemic and has unfortunately spent months in intensive care.

That is sad enough for him and his family.  What is also upsetting for his grown-up children during this time is that his clients have been jumping up and down because their tax return and VAT deadlines are being missed.

The gentleman concerned worked on his own, but he did not have even the simplest contingency or disaster recovery plans in place: all of his clients’ data was in a filing system to which only he had access; and the list of what needed to be done on a month-by-month basis was kept in his head.

It has taken a disproportionate amount of time and detective work by an emergency accountant and bookkeeper to get his work anywhere near up to date.

I am not saying I’m a saint

…………but there is another way.  As you know, here at Future Point 4 Business, we look after many of our clients’ websites: in many cases, we built them in the first place, and we are now responsible for their hosting, maintenance and general upkeep.

Our regular testing of our clients' websites means we are on top of anything that may have gone amiss. However, just occasionally a client will notice that something is not working quite correctly – a link is broken, a reference is out of date, or a piece of navigation does not work.

Our clients know they can always go onto the Future Point 4 Business website and “raise a ticket.”  This flags to me that something needs to be done.

Now, suppose that flag alerted only me…… and I had just stepped under the proverbial bus.
That would be similar to the situation the accountant was in.

Instead, what happens is that the raising of a ticket naturally alerts me, but it also alerts others, who, if they have not heard that I am acting on the ticket, contact me, and who, in the case of my incapacity, act on it themselves.

The responsibility cascades down a hierarchy of contacts, ensuring that the Future Point 4 Business client’s problem is fixed.

Care is part of our brand

​#planning #businessplanning #brandplanning #contingencyplanning #disasterrecoveryplanning #futurepoint4business