Your Company Shouldn’t Skip a Beat In the Face of a Disaster

The continuity of your business should be a major priority, especially considering how the livelihood of yourself and your employees is on the line. Believe it or not, there are some organizations out there that don’t give a second thought to the preservation of their data and critical assets. Therefore, it’s clear that you need to pay proper attention to how your organization handles problems like natural disasters, data loss, hacking attacks, and other hazardous incidents.

One of the main reasons that business continuity might be neglected is because your business has more “pressing” matters to tend to. Small issues that pile up over time can eventually outweigh the importance of large problems, like implementing preventative measures to stop the loss of data. As IT professionals, we adhere to Murphy’s Law when handling technology: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” All the same, your business needs to make sure it has what it takes to endure, even under the worst circumstances.

Natural Disasters
Sometimes it feels like the world is out to get you, especially if you’re suffering from a natural disaster. Nature has the overwhelming power to topple businesses with a single blow. Floods, fires, and electrical storms can cause damage to both your physical and virtual infrastructure. Tornadoes can send your business skyward, literally. Bad storms can bring down power lines and cause power outages. No matter where you are in the world, there’s a chance that a natural disaster can occur. Plus, natural disasters don’t even have to physically destroy your office to ruin your plans for success; all they have to do is make it virtually impossible for you to continue normal operations.

You can make dealing with natural disasters less daunting by looking into some relatively common technology solutions. For the normal thunderstorm, you can use an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), which allows your technology to shut down safely in the event of a power outage. Once all work and applications are properly saved and closed, the UPS sends a signal to the server, which informs it that it’s safe to shut down.

Succession Planning
This is one part of business continuity that might not seem immediately apparent. All organizations have important staff members that are crucial to the success and forward momentum of the business. If certain staff members suddenly aren’t available to work anymore, it could have devastating side-effects, assuming that you don’t have a contingency plan to replace them. This includes making sure that you’re prepared for situations like an employee quitting, falling severely ill, or simply being absent for an extended period of time; and, in the worst case scenario, if the employee unexpectedly dies.

We don’t want to sound negative or macabre, but you hear about car accidents, health problems, and other calamities that strike businesses when you least expect them to. Establishing clear succession guidelines can help to make this process easier. Even some simple cross-training can go a long way toward making it easier to deal with the void left by an experienced employee.

Data Loss and Disaster Recovery
The inability to recover lost data following a disaster is one of the top reasons that an organization goes out of business. Most businesses that fail to restore their data following a data loss disaster are likely to go out of business within a year following the incident. This is why data backup and disaster recovery are critical components of a business continuity plan.

Thankfully, Directive is great at helping small and medium-sized businesses plan for data backup and disaster recovery. Our BDR service is built specifically for the SMB, helping them avoid unnecessary downtime at an affordable monthly rate. Data backups are sent to a secure, off-site data center, where they can quickly be restored in a moment’s notice. The BDR can even temporarily act as your server in the event of a hardware failure or similar disaster, giving you ample time to replace the downed server.

You don’t have to feel like preparing for the worst is the end of the world. With Directive by your side, you can prepare your IT infrastructure for business continuity with ease. To learn more, give us a call at 607.433.2200.