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If you’ve been thinking about getting a plan in place to protect your company’s valuable assets, there is no better time to start than now.
Not only are cyberattacks and ransomware on the rise, but as of June 1, we officially moved into hurricane and coastal storm season that will last until the end of November.
It’s a scary thought when you look at the hurricane season from 2020, damages from the storms cost 36 billion dollars.
And as you know, there is no telling how bad hurricane season will be. Some years are bad and some are not so bad. But one thing is for certain, you cannot predict how much the fallout from an act of God could actually cost.
And how much would it cost your company?
Hurricanes and coastal storms have the potential to damage your office, your office equipment, and your data.
Hopefully, your insurance will cover the replacement of these items if a devastating storm occurs. However, an insurance company cannot help you recover your vital data stored on destroyed devices and servers.
• 75% of SMBs have no disaster recovery plan in place.
• Hardware failures cause 45% of unplanned downtime and are due to loss of power (35%), software failure (34%), data corruption (24%), external security breaches (23%), and accidental user error (20%).
• Companies with a trusted backup and disaster recovery plan were able to survive 96% more ransomware attacks than those without.
• 93% of companies without Disaster Recovery who suffer major data loss are out of business within one year.
If you’ve been thinking about getting a plan in place to protect your company’s valuable assets, there is no better time to start than now.
Not only are cyberattacks and ransomware on the rise, but as of June 1, we officially moved into hurricane and coastal storm season that will last until the end of November.
It’s a scary thought when you look at the hurricane season from 2020, damages from the storms cost 36 billion dollars.
And as you know, there is no telling how bad hurricane season will be. Some years are bad and some are not so bad. But one thing is for certain, you cannot predict how much the fallout from an act of God could actually cost.
And how much would it cost your company?
Hurricanes and coastal storms have the potential to damage your office, your office equipment, and your data.
Hopefully, your insurance will cover the replacement of these items if a devastating storm occurs. However, an insurance company cannot help you recover your vital data stored on destroyed devices and servers.
This may sound like a lot of doom and gloom but there is a way to minimize the amount of damage, loss of revenue, and downtime your company would experience in a natural disaster.
It is possible with a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) plan in place.
A BCDR plan greatly decreases the potential loss you, your company, your employees, your customers, and your vendors experience in times of devastation.
What is a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan?
The BCDR plan is a well thought out detailed process that outlines the crucial parts of your business that must be up and running for you to be able to continue to operate in the event of any disaster.
A Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan is your best defense to stay operational and profitable during a disruption of your normal business activities due to; water, fire, cyberattack, damaged servers, data loss or power loss.
The new term for your ability to stay operational is known as resiliency. The more your company has the ability to quickly recover from a disaster, the more resilient you are.
It is best to look at a BCDR plan like this; if you were devastated by a hurricane for example, and your office and devices were underwater, your BCDR plan would walk you step by step through the processes to return to fully operational in the shortest amount of time.
Your BCDR plan will include various points but it will generally cover the following key points.
The Key Points In a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan
- Identify Team
- Identify Scope of the Plan
- Identify Crucial Business Areas
- Identify Critical Functions
- Identify Dependencies Between Business Areas
- Determine Acceptable Downtime
- Create a Plan to Maintain Operations
- Test All Backups
- Continual Ongoing Testing of the Plan
Maintaining Your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan
Once you have your BCDR plan in place, it must be continually updated and tested. That means you must regularly revisit and update your plan as your processes, equipment, and team members change.
Unfortunately, this is the stage that most business owners fall short. They spend weeks working with their team to create a BCDR plan and then never look at it again.
This causes huge problems. Think about how many things change in your business over the course of a couple of months. If your BCDR plan is not updated, you will experience unnecessary loss and downtime because your plan is no longer valid in some areas.
To ensure you get the most from your BCDR plan and keep it continually updated and tested we suggest partnering with a Managed IT Services provider like us at Attain Technology.
We will perform an audit of your crucial business activities and create a BCDR plan that ensures you are operational when a disaster happens.
Once your plan is created and in place, we continually work with you to update and revise it as your business changes and grows.
That way you won’t be left with an outdated plan you cannot use.
If you would like to find out more about our Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning services, contact me at 401-250-8871.
