As frequent headlines about natural disasters like wildfires in California or Hurricane Harvey in Houston demonstrate, the need for a business continuity and disaster recovery plan is real. What seemed an unlikely event just a few years ago now seems imminent. Natural disasters are debilitating in an age where companies rely heavily on digital tools and processes. From power outages to damaged equipment and interruptions in internet connectivity, businesses need a plan for continuing operations during and following a natural disaster.
To bolster your technology infrastructure and ensure you can weather a major natural disaster, consider implementing these four steps for business continuity and disaster recovery:
Begin with a strategy meeting: Your preparation begins with a meeting including key stakeholders. Invite the internal IT staff, your managed service providers, office managers, and your chief executive officer (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO). Topics to cover should include:
· The steps that need to be in place to prepare IT for a natural disaster
· Action needed if the office loses power
· The number of employees necessary to continue operations if a disaster caused a power outage
· How employees would access data and where the data is located
· Whether you should identify an alternative work space, such as a hotel, if employees can’t reach your office
Update the business continuity and disaster recovery plan: Leadership must take steps to update the existing plan, or create a new plan based on the recommendations in the meeting. Each objective must take into account the worse-case scenario. The IT department and providers should work to create plans for safeguarding data and company information. If new equipment or systems are required, create a timeline for obtaining what is needed. The plan should include certain instructions:
· Parameters for what circumstances will activate the plan
· Protocols for communications as well as the chain of command
· Emergency action steps and who is responsible for each function
· Equipment necessary for personnel, including remote team members
Set up offsite hosting and backup: In order to minimize downtime during a disaster, it’s important to set up off-site hosting services, in addition to file backup housed in the cloud. These types of solutions allow you to quickly restore data and go back to normal business operations. There are many levels of service, so identify the one that makes it easy for you to sleep at night.
Test and refine the plan. It’s not enough to have a plan; you need to thoroughly test it and be sure your team is familiar with it. Run a few different scenarios and refine your plan as you discover gaps or other problems. After you’ve made adjustments, test the plan periodically and update it to accommodate new processes and technologies.
Business continuity and disaster recovery are critical no matter where your business is located. From hurricanes to tornadoes to earthquakes, there’s not a region that’s safe from natural disaster. Contact us at Enterprise Visions to get started on your strategy for protecting your business, no matter what the weather.