risk mitigation

My email has stopped working. Grrrr!

All my email messages are still there and I can still see them.  But the little line at the top of the screen says “not responding” and I’m getting tired of trying to make it respond.

I can get by though because I have a backup email system that contains all my email.  I also have important messages saved in my directory structure. So I can find most of the emails I need.

Does that sound a bit like Little Goody Two-Shoes? Maybe so but to me it’s simply good business practice.

What I am missing is the folder structure I had set up in my usual email (MS Outlook).  In particular my “Action Required” folder where I saved anything that needed some action from me..  I don’t have that same folder structure in my backup system (Gmail). Now if I had only set that up before this happened …

Anyway, now it’s off to my IT support team to sort me out  in Outlook so I don’t waste any more time searching for emails that require me to take some action. And when they’ve done their bit, I’ll set up a mirrored folder system in Gmail so I won’t have the same frustration next time. Maybe I’ll use the Gmail Priority Inbox system.

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Managing risk in your business

If you business is to operate effectively, you and your staff need to be able to create, store, access and reuse information received or produced during the course of a regular working day.

Establishing core principles for keeping a good record of your business activities will reduce risks and lessen exposure to issues that may incur corruption or even loss.

Risks associated with poor document management include:

  • Unreliable information is used to make business decisions
  • Key information or documents are hard to find or lost
  • Time is wasted re-creating documents that cannot be found
  • Management practices become untimely, inappropriate and inefficient
  • The business is unable to comply with legislation or regulations
  • The business gains a negative reputation.

Core principles for managing information include:

  • Having a structured system for storing documents that is easily understood and available for all team members to access and use as and when required
  • Ensuring that all documents created as part of normal business activities are filed appropriately in the approved filing system
  • Establishing standard policies, processes and procedures and ensuring team members understand and maintain them when creating, storing and using organisational information
  • Making and storing notes on key business decisions – made by your Board or with clients.

You can read about more hints and tips to improve your business in my free eBook; and even more if you download the eWorkbook that gives you a full set of instructions on how to set up a filing system for your business.