There are aspects of most businesses that rely on a functioning IT infrastructure, such as stock control, data storage and supply chain. In the event of an event, does your business have a disaster recovery plan? If not, read on to find out what strategies your business needs to implement to protect it in the event of a disaster.
A disaster can be anything from a local event that affects only your business to an international event that brings down huge infrastructure and affects multiple establishments. Preparing for these events and everything in between will ensure you are ready to hit that button should the worst happen.
Communication is the first step — you will need to inform employees, clients and customers of the event and how (and if) it will affect them. Having this plan in place avoids last minute panic. Will you phone customers or put a sign on the door? Will your employees be told via phone or text? Assessing the impact of disaster on your business will help you to strategise.
Employees will need to be trained in what to do to prevent loss of business and/or assets; the most crucial points of a disaster recovery plan are to protect people and and resuming operations. A protocol of the people to contact, in which order, is also advisable.
Data backup is essential — in the event of a data loss, can you restore it? If you need access to paperwork while your disaster recovery is in place, hard copies may be essential for the continuity of your business operations.
Check that your insurance adequately covers your business, taking out extra cover for specific disaster risks, such as flooding.
Regularly testing your disaster recovery protocol will ensure that it works seamlessly, and iron out any issues before you need to implement it. The best mindset to have is to assume that at some point you will need to action the plan and, as such, it needs to be free from errors.
The key to a successful disaster recovery plan is to create it now, before disaster hits. This will minimise the impact to your business and reduce the financial hit of such an event.