What would you do if your offices were flooded and you found your server under three feet of water? What steps would you take if a power outage shut down your servers for more than a day? What if your premises were burned to the ground? How would you recover your data and keep your business running after an unforeseen disaster? When disasters strike unprepared companies, the consequences range from prolonged system downtime, and the resulting revenue loss, to companies going out of business completely. Of companies that experience a major loss of business data, 43% never reopen; 51% close within two years; and only 6% survive the long-term. Yet many businesses are not prepared to deal with the unexpected.
The key to surviving such an event is having a business continuity plan (BCP) in place. In plain language, a BCP is working out how to stay in business in the event of disaster.
Business continuity is sometimes confused with disaster recovery, but they are separate entities. Disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity and is defined as the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of the technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster.
A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) should include planning for the resumption of applications, data, hardware, communications (such as networking) and other IT infrastructure. So, where a BCP includes planning for non-IT related aspects such as key personnel, facilities, crisis communication and reputation protection, it should reference the DRP for IT-related recovery and continuity.
If you would like to know more about how we can help you with your disaster recovery planning, please contact us to arrange a free initial discovery meeting.
Download our article, Would Your Business Survive a Disaster?