May 15th, 2013
Pause for a minute and ask yourself if your business is prepared for a disaster. Chances are you have some plan for a large scale disaster like hurricanes, earthquakes and fire, but what about other disasters like hackers or human error? The truth is, many businesses with a disaster recovery plan often forget to ensure they cover all potential disasters.
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Disasters come in all shapes and sizes, from losing a day’s worth of data to floods or fires that can harm whole cities. Because they are so unpredictable in nature, it can often be hard to prepare your business for the inevitable. However, businesses aren’t at a total loss if they have Business Continuity Plans that can help them through any disaster.
February was an interesting month in terms of disasters. First there was the incident at the Super Bowl where half the stadium's lights abruptly went out leaving the game suspended and millions of viewers wondering what was going on. Then there was another Super Storm that hit the Eastern US, not to mention all the dramas going on around the world. These events continuously highlight the need for all businesses to have a Business Continuity Plan.
If the scale of natural disasters in 2012 is any indicator of what 2013 is to bring, we could see an increase in the severity of the weather. For businesses, this often means disruption of key services. We don't have to tell you that any disruption in service could have a drastic negative impact on profits. To mitigate potential losses, many companies are turning to Business Continuity (BC). Those just starting to develop their own plans are often at a loss due to the scale of the project. We're here to help make it a bit less daunting.
When it comes to disasters, people and businesses tend to think big, really big. Take for example Superstorm Sandy that hit the eastern US earlier in November. It can be pretty much guaranteed that a whole string of businesses will be preparing diligently for the next big storm. While this is important, smaller issues that happen at a higher frequency will be pushed to the side. One common issue revolves around passwords, and who manages them.
Disaster Recovery (DR), the act of ensuring that your systems and departments are ready for a disaster and that your IT systems can recover from it, is an important issue for all companies. While large companies with operations in more than one country can often bounce back quickly, small to medium businesses in the disaster area might have a tougher time, Ensuring a DR plan is reliable is necessary for small to medium sized businesses.
The Internet is the lifeblood of many, if not all companies. We rely on it to communicate, research and relax, and in the modern world, we hardly disconnect from it. As we increasingly rely on it, any disruption in service will normally cause employees to be less productive and your company to lose money. Any slowing down with your Internet can be just as bad, if not worse.
Business continuity - the act of ensuring that business activities are available at all times, including during disasters - is a practice all businesses, regardless of their size, should be implementing in their organization. While many businesses backup their data and think that they’re protected, they will find that during times of disaster they aren’t.
Most elevators/lifts in North America, Australia and the UK have a sign saying something along the lines of, “If there is a fire, don’t use the elevator/lift.” In Hong Kong, all elevators have signs that say, “When there is a fire, don’t use the lift.” The changing of one word, “if” to “when” presents a large difference of outlooks. In Hong Kong, people and businesses expect a disaster to happen. This is a viewpoint small business owners should adopt as well.
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) - a plan on how to keep your business operational during any adverse conditions - is an important process that every small business should implement. One of the major aspects of this is where you should backup your business’s data. Having a backup of your data is like an insurance plan for your company, with it, you’ll be able to keep operating during adverse conditions.
