Your Business and The Floods

During times of such massive flood devastation it can be hard for us to focus on our business. We can feel guilty if we want to concentrate on building and growing our business bottom line while people are cleaning up from the floods, or preparing themselves for impending doom.

If your business is directly impacted by the floods you may be focusing on cleaning up before making decisions about how to re-establish your business.

Global accounting body CPA Australia is assisting businesses in dealing with the impact of state-wide flooding and has developed a disaster recovery toolkit offering guidance for businesses that have been affected by a natural disaster, both directly and indirectly. It includes checklists for re-opening your business and managing during times of financial difficulty, as well as tools to help reconstruct your financial records.

You might not have been flooded, but your business may be indirectly impacted as you rely on businesses affected by the floods for your business. If you operate a tourism based business, for example, your decline in business may have an impact on your cash flow for the next twelve months.

While it may all feel a little hard at the moment you do need to sit down and develop a specific plan for your approach to business recovery over the next 12-18 months.

For tourism based businesses, Adrian Caruso and Dr. David Beirman have put together a Tourism Crisis Recover Guide, to assist tourism businesses affected by the recent flood crisis in Queensland.

There is also a range of government assistance for small to medium businesses.

If you want to help a business impacted by the floods you can offer donations, volunteer to clean up, or if you have specific expertise, offer them at a discounted or voluntary capacity. Bizness Babes is supporting the adidem group through The Body Shop with fundraising and volunteer efforts.

In some way we are all indirectly affected by the floods across the country, and while it may be hard to think about your business during these terrible times, our economy needs business to be strong.

It is up to us to help lead the way to ensure the Australian economy remains strong while other businesses are recovering. We need to look at our business plans and see what, if anything, needs to change in response to the floods.

We can have empathy, but we cannot take our eye off the ball. If we are not directly impacted by the floods the best way to support the businesses that are, is to build your business as sustainable.

If you are a Bizness Babe and need to talk about your situation please contact your co-ordinator or me.

Vickie Burkinshaw
GM Bizness Babes

Picture above from the Courier Mail.