Plenty of disaster recovery best practices are shared across industries and even regions. For example, network and data backup are critical components of any business continuity plan, regardless of where the company might be operating. However, there are also certain techniques and specific aspects of recovery that will vary among different organizations, and the trick to maintaining optimal operational continuity is to plan for every possible threat.
This means building a foundation through sound, common necessities of recovery, then stretching the programs to cover more industry-specific risks. Taking that a step further, each individual business will need a specialized recovery and continuity strategy that adds contingencies for unique aspects of operations that might not be apparent in other situations. One industry that has plenty of digitally centric recovery needs is accounting, where data is almost always sensitive.
Accounting for disaster
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants listed some of the core demands of recovery and continuity for companies that operate in financial services, affirming that these businesses must act soon to protect their bottom lines. Regardless of what time of the year it might be, network outages and data loss can be devastating in this industry, as clients will not be quick to re-sign contracts should they experience increased risk or slow turnaround times on orders.
According to the association, from a structural standpoint, accounting firms might want to consider implementing a task force of sorts, which would be a team of currently available workforce members to take the lead when a disaster comes to pass. Including at least one individual from each department in the team can help to ensure that all employees stay on the same page even when disruption is apparent and core systems are rendered useless.
The organization added that accounting firms will need to iron out their plans a bit more comprehensively than other types of companies, and should have contingencies in place to keep mission-critical apps up and running. Finally, AICPA argued that assessment and refinement are critical across all aspects of the recovery plan, and that, because businesses in this industry can be crushed by even a short outage, leaders should focus on tight documentation of all activity related to DR planning and execution.
Assistance for all
Businesses of all sizes and industries are increasingly looking toward a range of resources to help improve their resilience to disasters, namely managed service providers that offer cloud-based solutions. While this can help to get strategies up to optimal levels and ensure that all necessary technologies are deployed in a timely fashion, smaller companies can also look to the U.S. Small Business Administration for guidance.
This can be especially helpful when starting a plan from scratch. However, working with a managed service provider that offers specialized support to entrepreneurs can add the unique touch necessary to get these firms up to speed with all of their recovery and continuity needs.