Let's look at some practical examples of the most common risks that many small business owners either fail to identify or just ignore until it's too late.
Financial and reputation loss if a client or customer injures themselves and the business is not covered by public liability insurance.
The impacts of the business owner or key resource being unable to work for an extended period.
Financial or reputation loss of any other event occurs which is not covered by insurance.
Inability to meet client or customer deadlines due to inefficient or inconsistent work processes.
Insufficient income being generated due to lack of active sales and marketing.
Insufficient cashflow for daily expenses due to irregular income flow.
Inability to pay VAT or income tax because there is no provisioning for VAT/income tax during each period/year.
No funds available in the event of an emergency or ad hoc large payment required, because there is no savings plan.
Legal impact of not having the correct licences or permits to conduct the business activities.
Client, reputation and financial loss due to non-existent or poorly written client contracts or Terms & Conditions.
Negative impacts to service/product delivery due to unforeseen staff absences, as a result of inadequate staff coverage or succession planning.
Negative impacts to service/product delivery due to poor supplier performance, as a result of non-existent or poorly written Service Level Agreements (SLA) with their suppliers.
These risks can be managed if identified, every business owner simply needs to know they exist and then identify what action they can take to prevent them from happening.