5 Ways to Prepare Your Business Now for the Next Major Disruption Don't be caught off-guard … again. Plan for the future now before it's too late.

In the more than one year since Covid-19 shut down the global economy, we have seen how this pandemic has upended the way we all live and do business. And, the warnings of Bill Gates and others notwithstanding, most people seem to view Covid-19, and the associated economic shutdown it ushered in, as a largely unforeseen — and unforeseeable — event. As a consequence, virtually no business on earth had even remotely prepared for the breadth and magnitude of its impact.

With the rapid scaling up of vaccine distribution and delivery, there are signs that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Indeed, people these days are increasingly optimistic that life will go back to normal (or at least a new normal in which mask-wearing, distancing, and hand-washing are more common) and Covid-19 will be one of those things we look back on as nothing more than a bump in the road on the way to continued economic growth and prosperity.

The problem with this view isn't that it's wrong. In fact, it may well be true that Covid-19 couldn't have been predicted, at least not with regard to exactly when it would first appear and the extent of its impact. It may also be true that it will, like all bad dreams, soon be forgotten so that we can all return to business-as-usual. Rather, the problem with this view is that it ignores the one (and most important) lesson we should take away from this pandemic; namely, that Covid-19 isn't the first, nor will it be the last, major shock to the global economy. And, while we cannot predict what the next shock will be, when it will hit, whom it will affect, or how badly it will affect them, we can take steps to insulate our businesses to that inevitability before it's too late. In what follows, I outline five ways that all business owners can prepare now for the next major disruption so that they can more easily weather the storm.