Security Matters

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How To Identify And Evaluate Scenarios

Evaluate Scenarios

Knowing your business risks is only part of the battle. The next step is to identify and evaluate scenarios.

Scenarios are designed to help you better understand how a risk would unfold and what it would mean for your business. It also helps you plan how to act in such an event.

While your business may never go through some of the scenarios, it’s always better to know what to do should anything happen.

Better Understanding Your Risks

Businesses face various risks, such as natural disasters, theft, vandalism and disgruntled employees. While these might seem obvious, it’s not until you start identifying scenarios that you uncover other risks, such as:

  • Drug and substance abuse by employees
  • Threats from area festivals and events
  • Embezzlement
  • Handling security during a power outage
  • Area streets being blocked during an emergency

As you can see, your risks aren’t always immediately obvious. As you go through scenarios, they’ll lead you to others. This helps you to better understand your risks and how they affect other areas of your business.

You may already have plans in place to deal with the obvious, but what happens if a scenario veers away from the safety of your risk management plans? As you evaluate scenarios, you’ll understand your risks and be able to make better plans.

Identifying Possible Scenarios

When identifying possible scenarios, it’s important to think outside the box. You can start with the most obvious, but start working your way out from there.

It’s a good idea to work as a team and even include your security team in the process. As you identify a scenario, others on the team will think of related scenarios. Consider it a major brainstorming session.

Since everyone thinks differently, you’ll get a wider range of scenarios. By including your security team, you’ll benefit from their experiences as well. After all, they’ve likely experienced many of the scenarios first hand.

Evaluating Scenarios

The next step is even more important than identifying. You need to see if your risk management plans actually work for all the scenarios you’ve identified. The great thing about your plans is they’re agile. You can adapt them as you need.

While you can use past experience during this process, you should also think ahead. After all, you’re evaluating how your plans would work for future scenarios. Of course, those scenarios could easily change should your business change, such as moving to a new location or implementing a new security strategy.

You’ll have multiple scenarios for every risk and it’s important to evaluate each one. But, remember to not go overboard. It’s possible to come up with too many scenarios and that just makes evaluation impossible.

Consider all elements that may affect the outcome of the scenario. For instance, in a crisis, how much of a difference would it make between having one security guard and two? Should the power go out, would emergency generators be enough and what would happen if the power doesn’t come back on before the generators run out?

It’s all about considering possibilities and seeing how your current plans fit in. You’ll adjust your plans quite a bit during this process, so be prepared.

Rinse And Repeat

Once you’ve identified and evaluated scenarios, you get to do it again. It’s kind of like washing your hair. Lather, rinse, repeat. You don’t have to do it immediately, but take the time to review your risk management plan by going through scenarios yearly or even twice a year.

You should always make time to review your plans after any major change to your business. Consulting security experts is also a great way to review scenarios and adjust your plans. Don’t be afraid to rely on their experience as a guide.

Contact BOS Security

Are you trying to identify and evaluate scenarios, but don’t know where to start? Contact us today at 404-793-6965 to see how our security services can help.

You can also better understand your security risks by trying our free Security Needs Assessment.

Image: Helloquence

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