[Infographic] Small Businesses Continue To Lack Disaster Preparedness

Despite the slew of natural disasters that’s hit continental United States in recent months such as Hurricane Sandy and the winter storm Nemo, small businesses continue to lack a business preparedness or recovery plan in case they’re affected. According to the recent 2013 Small Business Disaster Survey carried out by Alibaba, Vendio and Auctiva in December 2012, 74-percent of small business owners don’t have a disaster recovery plan for their business.

The only good news is that 15-percent of those 600 surveyed are in the process of creating one. And just as well they should – according to the Insurance Information Institute, four out of 10 small businesses never reopen their doors after being affected by a natural or man-made disaster.

Here are more interesting findings from the survey:

– 84% of participants do not have natural disaster insurance for their business. Some of them say they will have to close down their business if the damage is severe.

– 71% of respondents said their business does not have a back-up generator in case of electrical outage.

– When a disaster strikes, 30% said they are prepared to run their e-commerce business smoothly as their business information is stored in the cloud. 70% feel they will be vulnerable and, among them, 23% said their IT systems/assets are onsite.

– If the small business owners were affected by a natural disaster, 42% would save products, inventory or office materials; 36% would communicate directly with customers right away, and 14% would update their website to reflect changes and latest status.

– 76% of respondents said their business has never been affected by a natural disaster.

– 62% of respondents said they could run their business from a mobile device.

– 37% of respondents are not sure how long it would take them to return to “business as usual” if they were affected by a natural disaster. A little over a third (33%) of the small business owners said one week, while 16% said two weeks.

Here’s the information represented in an infographic: