Business Resiliency

Bonnie CanalNews, Thought Leadership

As a small business owner, I sometimes wonder what I have gotten myself into. Can you relate? I have been an entrepreneur for many years and I have struggled to keep myself positive and proactive even in the face of major adversity.  I thought nothing bad could happen to me, until it did. I had a successful business then on August 23, 2005, my business was gone. Why do I remember that day? It was the day Hurricane Katrina hit my hometown, New Orleans, Louisiana.

From that day forward, I had to rebuild my business what I was doing was no longer a viable option to me. Can’t happen to you? Well I said the same thing. Here are some stunning statistics:

  • 15-40%
    • The number of businesses that fail following a natural or man-made disaster.
  • 35%
    • The number of small to medium-sized businesses that have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. **
  • 94%
    • Number of small business owners who believe a disaster could seriously disrupt their business within the next two years. ***
  • 51%
    • Number of Americans who have experienced at least one emergency situation involving lost utilities for at least 3 days, evacuation from their home or office, loss of communications with family members or had to provide first aid to others.****

With those statistics, I began to understand that many times business owners, like me, needed both help and advice to keep their businesses operational. So I became the founder and Managing Partner of The Resiliency Institute, LLC (TRI). TRI is a full service consulting firm specializing in comprehensive solutions for small/medium size businesses (SMBs), understanding the role they play in community preparedness and resiliency.

*Insurance Information Institute,
**Gartner, ***American Red Cross and FedEx Small Business Survey, 2007,
****American Red Cross/Harris Poll Survey, 2009.

Bonnie Canal
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