Continuity Centers

Disaster preparedness includes safeguards for all types of situations

A lot of attention and planning are needed to establish comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery strategies. Unfortunately, some organizations overlook smaller details that may make it challenging to fully respond to disruptions, whether these incidents are caused by Mother Nature, human error or cyberattacks.

Disasters include variety of incidents
Information Age’s Chloe Green recently detailed some of the results of disasters that are not so clear to unsuspecting companies. The very word “disaster” has different meanings. For example, an organization’s main office could be functional, but it could be challenging to send critical sales material to an important meeting or employee who is traveling, resulting in a lost opportunity to close an important contract. Alternatively, a field service engineer could lack the ability to order spare keys because of the operational disruption.

“Business continuity plans cover factors such as mapping your locations, assets and operations, and identifying the critical processes you need to operate and what minimum resources are needed,” Green wrote. “Staff need to be covered for emergencies – for example, do your salespeople or other mobile professionals have an emergency kit in their cars?”

With so much to account for, firms may need some help
The days of just focusing on mission-critical data and IT systems in terms of developing BC/DR strategies are over. Firms undoubtedly have to devote time, energy and resources toward safeguarding these important assets, but thorough BC/DR initiatives clearly demand far more attention to help in all phases of the organization.

“Successful BC/DR strategies must account for their fair share of scenarios.”

What’s more is that some companies’ bread and butter are earned in markets far removed from managing IT departments. These businesses in particular may be overwhelmed when trying to focus on BC/DR when there are other matters to attend to, including generating sales, addressing customer service concerns and developing marketing initiatives.

Firms in this position should not hesitate to seek assistance from outside of their walls. Recovery specialists are available that help clients update their BC/DR strategies to make sure all systems and data are protected from disruptions. Should these incidents occur, service providers are available to get customers back on their feet to restore operations as quickly as possible.

Organizations may be unable to know exactly when and where inclement weather will strike, human errors will occur or power outages happen, but they can at least be ready to react during these events so sales opportunities are not lost for hours, days or longer.

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