Businesses must always put their fate in their own hands. Even when nature seems to have other ideas, companies must exert as much control as possible.
Though business travel has suffered enough due to covid, setbacks can still occur in a post-pandemic world. Many of these obstacles revolve around turbulent weather capable of creating hazardous travelling conditions, causing damage, and even compromising B2B dynamics. All of these things can negatively influence company prospects.
Problems can transpire at the company premises too. Things like floods and strong winds can impact business activities in London and beyond. Suitable preparations must be made, as the disastrous consequences of these events can be diminished with enough hard work.
Consequently, every firm must be willing to adapt so they can overcome these sets of challenges. Here are our tips for minimising weather disruption to business activities.
Table of Contents
Utilise a Weather API
Few firms make big business decisions today without checking that relevant data supports their strategy. The weather must be analysed similarly, especially if your London-based business has anything to do with outdoor pursuits.
Using a local weather API from WorldWeatherOnline gives you access to accurate readings of current weather in worldwide cities and towns. Future weather forecasts are also reliably provided for a period of up to 14 days. It also helps your programmers and developers embed weather data into your websites and apps, enabling you to provide accurate customer data. Marine weather is also available if boat travel enters the equation.
Weather APIs can be accessed via smartphone apps. They can also be utilised for personal or commercial use, and multilingual weather descriptions are featured. Time zone information can also be requested if business travel activities occur. Sign up for WorldWeatherOnline’s free, no-obligation 30-day trial to see how these digital tools can benefit your business prospects in travel and more. Stay ahead of every potential weather disruption anywhere.
Secure Insurance
The weather can be so bad in London that no amount of preparations can prevent damage to company property. Nevertheless, it’s important to be proactive the moment disaster strikes.
Adequate coverage can help your business recover at the earliest opportunity. You’ll need business building insurance to protect your premises against turbulent weather. Remember, you can only do this if you own the building. If you don’t, you’ll need to contact your landlord about making repairs.
It’s also a good idea to cover your equipment and stock individually, so you can be sure you’re on the safe side. Depending on your line of work, some of your company’s inventory can be quite pricey, so legal safeguards are recommended.
Your firm must be diligent in managing insurance matters. It’s not a case of simply taking out coverage and feeling content thereafter. For example, you’ll need to keep the receipts when procuring the goods you wish to cover in your business. That information is what authorises a claim from the insurance company, so ensure your records are digitised and secure on a state-of-the-art cloud server to prevent data loss and mismanagement.
Manage Supplier Networks
London is a central hub of business activity. It won’t only be your firm that’s disrupted by the weather.
Different courses of action here depend on how serious the weather disruption is. Work with your current suppliers first. Agree on continuity and recovery timeframes, help them discover alternative production sites if needed, and recommend the weather API tools you’ve been using. You should collaborate to get back on track.
If the bad weather is so great that the working relationship with your supplier becomes unsalvageable, then difficult decisions may need to be made. Still, they should be arrived at promptly. In those unfortunate circumstances, you may need to orchestrate other business deals with less affected suppliers quickly and capably.
Your critical vendors should be able to withstand bad weather. Determine whether they can. You could check news reports to see if they’ve been affected before or make a few enquiries to gauge whether they have.
Implement Flexible Working
Weather conditions can be so terrible that it’s not worth staff navigating wet, slippy, or excessively windy London streets. Of course, days off because of these circumstances shouldn’t be permitted either unless injuries have already occurred.
Many more companies are now open to flexible working schemes, and hopefully, your firm has followed suit. If you have remote working capabilities, your employees should be able to work from home without much of the bother turbulent weather can bring. Staying home can also help them focus and be comfortable, as braving storms first thing in the morning can certainly sap one’s motivation levels.
Of course, problems can still transpire here. Residences can be flooded and damaged, and internet connections can also be unreliable sometimes if the wind is strong enough. Keep tabs on their respective situations, stay in touch and provide useful advice. For instance, you could remind employees that smartphones can be used as internet hotspots if the Wi-Fi drops. Instruct your employees to save their work often in case power cuts strike.
