Ensuring Business Resilience: Effective Strategies for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

If you have to pause or think for one second before responding, the answer is no.

Each day of business brings with it an unforeseen risk.

Whether it’s catastrophic weather conditions, cybersecurity threats, or the vulnerabilities of the technology we’re dependent on to perform daily work functions, there must be both a business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plan in place.

There must also be a complete confidence in the effectiveness of the BC/ DR strategies that are implemented.

A Competent BC/DR Strategy Is a Must

Often misconceived as a problem for the “big guys,” business continuity is a concern for businesses and organizations of all sizes – whether there are 5 or 5,000 employees.

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Disaster recovery specialists Databarracks has revealed that a disturbing number of British firms lack confidence in their disaster recovery capabilities.

The survey results are alarming considering the devastating nature of ransomware attacks these days, some of which have cost companies tens of millions of pounds.

The findings came from Databarracks’ 2019 Data Health Check, which shows that more needs to be done to bring business continuity higher up the corporate agenda.

The Databarracks research questioned over 400 IT decision-makers in the UK and it revealed that just a third of UK organisations (35 percent) are very confident in their current disaster recovery (DR) plans.

The good news however is that over half (53 percent) said they are fairly confident, but 8 percent of British firms have concerns.

And perhaps even worse, less than half (49 percent) have complete confidence in their current backup solution.

The importance of business continuity and disaster recovery solutions is becoming more apparent as companies continue to adjust to the business disruptions caused by COVID-19.

While Coronavirus itself cannot shut down your enterprise’s systems or operations, it can put organizations at risk through short staffing (due to quarantining or sick personnel) or unavailable services.

Furthermore, the pandemic has caused a shortage of vendor technical representatives willing to do on-site work and supply line interruptions, delaying important maintenance and repairs.

While it is not common that businesses face a global pandemic, other disruptions like natural disasters, security threats, and outages are very real and more common than you might think.

To make matters worse, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports that about 40 to 60 percent of small businesses never reopen their doors after a disaster.

Keep reading as we discuss three areas that you should consider in terms of disaster recovery so that your business can stay afloat no matter what comes your way.The Components of Disaster Recovery PlanningBusiness continuity and disaster recovery solutions should aim to ensure a smooth recovery process following any type of disaster.

Business organizations that value disaster recovery have a do everything in their power to ensure that their internal business processes do not come crashing down when disaster strikes.Any effective disaster recovery must have a clear disaster recovery plan that outlines every step that needs to be taken when an outage occurs.

This is especially necessary if you are yet to hire a disaster recovery consulting firm like True North ITG.Additionally, there are a number of disaster recovery solutions that companies that have been notably successful in disaster recovery have kept hidden for years now.

In this article, we will reveal some of these secrets that if implemented can transform your company’s preparedness for the worst disasters.Do backup testing and contingency environment testing ahead of timeIt is interesting to note that while the majority of business executives know that testing backup and a redundant system is a must, there is still a considerable number that still fails to go through these processes.The problem with a failure to do adequate tests is that it makes the company susceptible to operational failure when disaster occurs because it had not encountered the problems before.

Tests allow everyone involved to learn how to best respond to an emergency while bringing to the fore possible challenges the company might face during disaster recovery.Make clear to every department manager what their key responsibilities areMore often than not, you will find companies having a list of all tasks that will be carried out once a disaster strikes.

The list will usually not have information about the person who is responsible for making sure the task is undertaken and completed.Therefore, it is important to define the responsibility of each department manager so that you can entrust the managers to ensure everyone does what is necessary to get the company back to normal operations the soonest possible after a devastating disaster.

When everyone knows their responsibilities, no important processes are left unattended and thereby altering for the worse the disaster recovery process.Approve expenses before disaster strikesWhile disaster expenses cannot be accurately predicted before an actual disaster occurs, it is possible to come up with estimates that can help move things faster on the day of the outage.Approving these estimates makes sure that the employees spend their time still working towards the set company goals and their employee key performance indicators instead of getting weighed down trying to figure out how to pay for the basic and unavoidable expenses that are necessary to get the business systems back on.