DELRAY BEACH, Fla. - (Business Wire) As residents in Louisiana and Texas recover from Tropical Storm Edouard and business owners throughout parts of the Midwest and Southern California evaluate the damage caused by recent tornadoes and earthquakes, Office Depot
® (NYSE:ODP), a leading global provider of office products and services, is urging small businesses across the U.S. to get prepared and to protect their business assets.
A recent national survey, commissioned by Office Depot, reveals that 40 percent of small businesses admit they are not ready for a disaster and one-third indicate having no current plans to get prepared. Of those businesses indicating they were not prepared for a natural disaster:
- 37 percent said they had not taken the time to do so;
- 17 percent indicated it was too expensive; and
- 11 percent claim not to know what to do.
While the most important step in readiness planning is to ensure the safety of family and friends, business owners also need to protect their organization and property in order to bring operations up-to-speed as quickly as possible after an unexpected event. Not only is valuable data and property at risk, but also the ability to financially support employees who might not have the ability to endure a lapse in pay due to a disaster.
“Heed the storm warnings and protect your most important assets: your people and your data,” said Tom Serio, Director of Global Business Continuity Management for Office Depot. “There are simple and affordable steps you can take to protect your business now.”
Before a storm, Serio advises small businesses to take the following steps:
Protect Your People
- Build solid contact lists. Include names and phone numbers of employees, vendors, and emergency agencies.
- Establish emergency communications procedures.
- Organize supplies. Ensure you have sufficient water, batteries, food, and janitorial products, and that your company has access to cash, generators, and batteries.
- Provide employee assistance. Train at least one staff member in CPR and first aid and, if possible, prepare family disaster kits and alternative family housing.
Protect Your Data
- Copy data to removable media such as DVD-R or CD-R discs, or removable disk drives, like the Ativa flash memory drive, that connect to systems via their USB ports.
- Back-up as much data as possible and store hard copies of important documents (such as insurance forms) in a fire- and water-proof safe.
- Take a copy of software used to make backups to a secure, off-site location.
At its core, disaster planning is about business survival. One in four businesses will experience a significant crisis in a given year, according to the Association of Small Business Development Centers, and of those businesses that experience a disaster and have no emergency plan, 43 percent never reopen.
While these statistics are startling, the Office Depot survey did show that small business owners living in natural disaster-prone regions (Coastal areas or the Midwest) are far more inclined towards disaster preparation. But nationally speaking, a full 25 percent of business owners describe their attitude towards disaster preparation as “live and let live,” explaining they would rather deal with a disaster when it occurs than get ahead of a potential problem.
How Did the Regions Compare?
Conducted by TNS NFO, the survey of 5,000 business owners reveals surprising regional differences in the readiness efforts of businesses operating in disaster-prone regions:
- The Gulf Coast and Eastern seaboard region lead in preparedness planning, however, nearly a third (27 percent) of business owners across the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast and Eastern seaboard report their businesses are not prepared for a disaster; and
- Slightly less than half (42 percent) of business owners survey in Southern California say they are not prepared, despite the devastation caused by recent wildfires and earthquakes; and
- Nearly four out of 10 (39 percent) of businesses in the Midwest, which has experienced one of the most destructive tornado seasons this year, state they do not have a disaster readiness plan in place.
“Preparedness planning is vital to business survival, regardless of where you live,” said Serio. “If you are a small business owner, you can’t afford not to be prepared.”
For more information, and to download Office Depot’s free brochure titled Expecting the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness Strategies for Small Business, visit www.officedepot.com/getprepared.
About the Office Depot Survey
An online omnibus study was conducted by TNS NFO on March 26 through April 3, 2008. Five thousand (5,000) completes (representative of the U.S. household population 18+ on age, gender, geographic division, income, household size, household designation and market size) were received. In order to qualify for this study, respondents must have stated that they were either a business owner or part owner.
Preparing for the Unexpected
The Office Depot free brochure, entitled Expecting the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness Strategies for Small Business, highlights simple and affordable solutions on how businesses can protect their people and data, and includes preparation checklists and guidelines to get started. Available at www.officedepot.com/getprepared, the brochure provides business with practical solutions and underscores the critical need for businesses to take disaster preparedness, from natural disasters to daily threats such as computer viruses and power outages, seriously.
About Office Depot
Every day, Office Depot is Taking Care of Business for millions of customers around the globe. For the local corner store as well as Fortune 500 companies, Office Depot provides products and services to its customers through 1,680 worldwide retail stores, a dedicated sales force, top-rated catalogs and a $5.0 billion e-commerce operation. Office Depot has annual sales of approximately $15.4 billion, and employs about 49,000 associates around the world. The Company provides more office products and services to more customers in more countries than any other company, and currently sells to customers directly or through affiliates in 44 countries.
Office Depot’s common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ODP and is included in the S&P 500 Index. Additional press information can be found at: http://mediarelations.officedepot.com.
Office Depot, Delray Beach
Melissa Perlman, 561-438-0704
Melissa.Perlman@Officedepot.com
or
Stanton Crenshaw Communications
Jody Sunna, 646-502-3577
jsunna@stantoncrenshaw.com
