White Paper reveals how to disaster-proof businesses

Networking is the key to building the capacity of businesses to withstand ongoing and future crisis events, according to our latest White Paper on business resilience.

Global social capital expert Professor Daniel Aldrich wrote the White Paper with input from Dr Val Ingham and myself, which explores the specific role business community networks can play in the disaster space.

Reviewing a regional network

Professor Aldrich focused on the Blue Mountains local government area, using the results of a Blue Mountains Business Community Resilience Survey conducted by our sister company corporate2community in late 2021, and a review of recent literature relating to networks and crises.

The Blue Mountains area, where two of our grant-funded projects are based, proved to be the perfect area for such a case study with its many villages and varying types and sizes of business communities.

“These types of social networks can form a conduit for important information, help us coordinate our collective activities, provide financial, administrative, and psychological support, and influence our everyday behaviours,” Professor Aldrich said.

Social networks are an efficient way to alleviate shocks and accelerate recovery in communities – and our most important defence against disasters.

Professor Daniel P. Aldrich
Global expert in social capital

The untapped value of social networks

Professor Aldrich’s work on social capital bonding and bridging and linking ties exploring the value of social networks in disasters is given local context with input from Blue Mountains-based Dr Ingham, who has a background in emergency management and community services from Charles Sturt University.

“Our main finding is that there is a place for focused programs in the Blue Mountains that foster connections among business owners and operators in order to build their business capacity to handle ongoing and future crisis events,” Professor Aldrich said.

“We believe that developing a regional-based network to provide opportunities tied to disaster education and mentoring – can meet this need. With funding from regional and national authorities, a number of NGOs and private sector organisations can help guide the creation of this network.”

The Survey canvassed business owners across the Blue Mountains, asking them about how they went about connecting with each other.

Networking is key to preparedness

More than 60 businesses responded, highlighting while business owners already recognised the power of networks and connections in building resilience, many lacked broad and diverse networks, and did not fully embrace or understand the value in networking, especially in terms of building disaster preparedness.

Dr Ingham said the findings were worrying for the Blue Mountains considering the high overall failure rates of businesses affected by disasters.

“Many businesses continue to operate in relative isolation – this is not an ideal situation, given the recent disasters of the Black Summer bushfires of 2019/20, followed by severe flooding in some locations and then the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr Ingham said.

“Encouragingly, most respondents to our Survey said they would be interested in developing a new, more open network of businesses, but would need administrative help given time and resource constraints.”

Local culture of connection

While the Survey revealed a level of uncertainty and lack of knowledge, businesspeople were clearly still keen to connect and collaborate – they just weren’t sure how.

Small businesses play an essential role in recovery and resilience as they form the foundation of communities small and large across Australia.

We know our business networks are not inclusive enough, so it’s critical we put in place mechanisms that allow businesspeople to create and join networks that attract diverse members who can share their knowledge, experience and support for when the going gets tough.

Resilient and ready business communities are those that are connected before disaster strikes. By investing in inclusive and upskilled programs, Resilient Ready is helping business owners and operators understand the critical role they play in communities and how their connections benefit everyone in the good times and the bad.

In this current era of compound disasters, the benefits in having strong, established networks, online and offline, within business communities are clear.

Resilient Ready is a social enterprise delivering innovative solutions to enable every organisation to thrive before, during and after disasters. To keep updated on news and current projects, sign up to our newsletter.