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Natural Disasters Are Unavoidable. Is Your Business Ready? (Infographic) One in four organizations slammed by a natural disaster is unable to reopen its doors. Here's a look at how business owners can prepare and minimize potential losses.

By Catherine Clifford

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

As a business owner, you can plan, plan, plan all day and stay up all night planning some more. You can have a perfect business plan, a flawless marketing campaign and a rock solid team of superstar employees. But disasters happen. Floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes. And even if your headquarters aren't affected directly, a natural disaster can take out a part of your supply chain or partially incapacitate a vendor.

Unfortunately, there is almost nothing you can do to insure that your business will be 100-percent protected from the whiplash of a natural disaster. But there are some steps you can take now to minimize potential loss later.

Your preparation may mean be the difference between your business surviving and it being taken out. One in four organizations hit by a major disaster doesn't reopen, according to the infographic (below) compiled by Boston University's Metropolitan College Graduate Programs in Management. Every dollar invested in a preparedness plan ahead of a disaster striking can save your business $7 after the fact.

Related: What Businesses Need to Know About Preparing, Coping and Recovering From Natural Disasters

Check out the infographic to identify what you should do to assess and mitigate some of the potential risks.

Click to Enlarge+
Natural Disasters Are Unavoidable. Is Your Business Ready? (Infographic)

Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.

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