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Risk Management
The Hazard and Vulnerability Analysis is important to identify (1) what hazards pose the greatest risk to your business operations and (2) where to spend time and resources to mitigate those impacts.
There are three types of assets to consider. The first are human resources – your employees and customers or clients. Safety issues should always remain a top business priority from a human standpoint. When looking at the cost-benefit analysis, you must consider liability risk, potential damage to reputation in the community and business interruption.
Secondly and closely related, is protection of your facilities. There is a range of options for preventing damages in existing or new facilities. It is up to the business to determine the level of protection necessary for its operations and the right mitigation measure(s) to provide the protection. There are structural and non-structural mitigation strategies. Both should be considered.
Third, you must protect your tangible and intangible assets. Tangible assets include office furniture, work equipment, supplies, computers, desks, etc. Intangible assets include the information and data base systems that allow you to provide your services or manufacture your materials. They include your communications systems and client lists and other information. The protection of these resources is crucial for many business operations. Failure to protect client information may, in fact, represent a significant liability for the company.