Look across Alberta and you will see a number of Petro-Canada service stations displaying zeros for the price of fuel. No, they are not giving out free gas. Petro-Canada is out of fuel. Their refinery just outside of Edmonton which processes over 135,000 barrels of crude oil per day is shutdown (diesel and other fuels are still available). This refinery is the end of the line for gasoline before it ships to the retail outlets throughout Alberta and it is down for the count leaving service stations running dry of petroleum products for our vehicles.
The question is why? Does Petro-Canada have a disaster recovery plan in place?
It appears “maybe”, in a CBC report, Petro-Canada spokesperson Jon Hamilton says Petro-Canada is shipping in fuel from international locations and acknowledges customers will be going to their competitors. Wait a second, he states “customers are going to competitors“.
Let’s shift focus from Petro-Canada to your business.
Is it OK for your customers or clients to go to your competitors, simply because you cannot serve them? It maybe OK for Petro-Canada however for the majority of businesses, this is not acceptable.
Disasters potentially can strike everywhere in your business and especially your IT and business systems. Are you prepared? Can you pull out your disaster recovery plan or business continuity plan today?
IT systems (which run your business) failure can be just as disasterous as lightning hitting a refinery and shutting down delivery of your products to market. Many business owners and especially small business simply do not have a plan in place when a disaster strikes. Many wait to after they have been burned to implement a plan, however this is simply to late.
What is the economic impact of every minute you cannot serve a client? Only you know the impact of downtime, outages and simple failure to serve can have on your business.
There is something you can do about it!
Proactive planning for a disaster on all levels is critically important for any business, not just the small or big. IT systems, product production lines, fire, flood and many types of disasters can and will hit your business, it is just a matter of when, not IF. Are you prepared to weather and IT disaster in your business?
Bulletproof InfoTech can help you prepare for a disaster, call us today for a no obligation, sit down and discuss what you can do today to plan for the future. Give us a shout at 403.206.2233 in Calgary or Red Deer at 403.340.1011 to book a time to discuss your options. If you would like to email us, please drop us a line to book your Disaster planning meeting.
Today’s world is about disaster avoidance, how can your business avoid losing business when a disaster strikes.
