When a disaster happens, typically around 40% of businesses don’t ever reopen. And those that haven’t reopened in five days have usually closed within two years.
This was the case in the aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.
The result? In some bushire-devastated regions of Victoria there are now communities that don’t have a hardware shop. People have to drive up to an hour and a half to their nearest hardware store.
Not only is there now no business to service the immediate community’s needs – the loss of that hardware shop translates to a loss of livelihood, loss of potential local employment and a loss of income for its suppliers.
What could have been different if that hardware shop had known how to better prepare for the disaster and how to build their resilience to survive future disasters?
Why Building a Resilient Business Community is Important
At corporate2community, our focus and passion in the disaster resilience space is all about building knowledge and connections within communities of people.
That’s especially the case with building connections within a business community.
We know that connected communities are resilient communities, and when a business has strong relationships with its customers, employees and suppliers, it is more likely to stay in business after a disaster occurs.
A business that’s able to continue to trade after a disaster means that the business owner:
- has a job to feed their family;
- can employ people;
- can sell or deliver their products;
- can provide essential services to the community;
- can buy from suppliers; and
- can give back in the form of pro bono or donated support to the community.
At the end of the day, a community is not going to be thriving if one single business stays in business. Businesses need to rise, and thrive, together.
Delivering Business Resilience projects in New South Wales
Three of the exciting initiatives we’re currently working on are delivering Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience Fund projects in Northern NSW, Southern NSW and the Blue Mountains.
These projects will enable us to pilot and bring to life our vision of having all businesses across a community take steps to build their disaster resilience knowledge.
That means supporting every business to make small changes in the everyday way they do business.
This approach empowers business leaders, owners and operators because they can play a role in building resilience capabilities and knowledge in their community.
We do disasters differently
Our whole-of-community and multi-stakeholder approach is a new take on how businesses can build resilience to benefit their own business operations and their communities.
At corporate2community we focus on building organisational resilience and community resilience, all packaged up in one.
To find out more about how we can help your community, contact us at [email protected]
Recent Comments