Business Contunity Management (BCM) and Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) are critcal to all types of organisations.  Whether your are a small business or a international enterprise both BCM and DRP must be under taken, implemented and tested.

 

Many organisation fail to consider what would happen in the event of a disaster.  Whether it as small as water damage of a server to a major disaster like a plane destroying the building, each of these events could have severe repercussions resulting in the business closing.  A few questions to consider,  What would happen to your business if:

• you lost all your data due to a power spike;
• you lost your systems due to flood;
• critical business data has been accidently deleted and it cannot be restored;
• your customer database is lost due to system corruption; or
• your business premises are lost in a fire.

Statistics on what happens to businesses after a networking disaster are varied, but here’s a small sample:

• 70% of businesses that experience a major data loss are out of business within one year (DTI/ PricewaterhouseCoopers)
• 94% of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss do not survive (University of Texas)
• 96% of all business workstations are not being backed up. (Contingency Planning and Strategic Research Corporation)
• 30% of small businesses will experience a natural disaster (NFIB)
• 10% of small businesses will experience a major data loss as result of human error (NFIB)

Can your business afford this?

Here are five key steps to consider when implementing a program for your company:

1. Understand what data and systems are critical to business continuity - Many governments have mandated the remote replication and storage of financial, medical, and certain other kinds of data. Businesses have realized that their data and applications are their life blood. Make sure you know where all of your company's critical data and applications are located and that they can be integrated into a remote backup solution.
2. Identify and fix single points of failure in your network, business processes, and people  - In network design, redundancy eliminates single points of failure. Make sure that network elements — including switches, routers, and other components — are redundant and enabled with software failover features. Review business processes and job responsibilities to ensure that there are similar "failover," should a process or employee become adversely affected in a disaster.
3. Create a workforce continuity plan - If employees can't get to their offices for days, weeks, or longer, it is important to understand what kinds of remote access solutions they need to continue being productive, based on their individual job requirements. For example:
   • Back office workers need access to applications and data and can probably use e-mail or instant messaging to communicate.
   • Other categories of employees whose jobs require a lot of collaboration may need high-availability voice-over-IP (VoIP) services along with access to corporate data and applications. The benefit of IP and Ethernet in a disaster is that they are so pervasive compared to other technologies that devices are truly plug and play.
   Executives and employees who must interact with customers, partners, or the press may need remote communications solutions with guaranteed quality of service (QoS), a VoIP phone with guaranteed toll-quality service, and collaborative software applications like Cisco MeetingPlace, which allows audio- and videoconferencing.
4. Create a disaster recovery plan - A formal plan should be initiated and endorsed by senior management and should involve all levels of personnel in your company. An inclusive process of gathering information and drafting the plan will create the necessary sense of everyone's ownership in and responsibility for disaster recovery. Every company's plan is unique, but common elements include:
   • Risk and threat analysis
   • Leadership and succession plan
   • Emergency response plan
   • Internal and external communications requirements
   • Human resources responsibilities
   • Facilities management
   • Availability of information and communications technology
   • Cooperation with first responders, public officials, vendors, partners, and customers
5. Train your staff on disaster response  - Training and practicing facilities evacuation and other emergency responsibilities for certain types of disasters relevant to your business could have dramatic consequences related to personnel safety, business continuity, data confidentiality, and asset security in the event of a real disaster.

Don't feel overwhelmed by BCM or DRP get help from one of our expert consultants.  Contact us today.