Continuity & Succession Plans
After successfully achieving the initial aims to realising the vision to build a profitable and prosperous business, it would be a regretable waste if the future success of that business was jeopardised due to a lack of contingency planning.
The things that managers struggle to cope with the most are the events and issues that they never foresee and planned for.
Therefore the impact of such surprises is often both sudden and unmanageable.
Generally contingency planning begins with a detailed risk assessment during which managers must pose the uncomfortable question "What is the worst that can happen?".
Many management proponents express a commmonly accepted fact when they say "The only constant in business is that things will constantly change ".
But the benefit of conducting a detailed risk assessment, with extensive " What If" analysis, is to seize an opportunity to identify risks and then devise contingency plans to mitigate those risks, which ultimately yields a new confidence in the capacity of the business to cope with any foreseeable contingencies.
What could possibly go wrong?
Just as it's prudent business practice to continually measure and monitor progress, quality and outcomes, it is also prudent to periodically review the probability and potential costs of progressive trends and sudden events.