Protect Your Business With a Disaster Recovery Plan

Why Have A Disaster Recovery Plan?

No one knows when a disaster will occur that will impact their business. We live in a world of uncertainty and we never know what will happen next. Having a disaster recovery plan will ensure that you and your staff understand what to do in the case of a disaster. This will minimize the impact on the operation of your business. If there was a disaster that impacted your business, do you know what your plan of action is?

Building A Plan

Your plan doesn’t need to be complicated or lengthy. Of course, the more detailed and thought-out the plan the more prepared you are, but the important thing is to start somewhere and have at least a basic plan.

Depending on the type of business you run, you need to mold your plan to match your business needs. If you start to think about this now, and get it documented, you won’t panic in the event of a disaster. These are the types of questions you should answer while building your plan.

• How will you let customers know your offices are closed, when they will re-open and alternative ways to contact you in case of an emergency? If you run any type of service based business where customers need to be able to contact you, you have to think about if your business is down, how it will impact your customer. Customers are more forgiving if you let them know what is going on and what you are doing to get up and running again.
• What if the roads are closed and you can’t get to the office? This is a very important part to your plan. The longer your business is down, the more of an impact it will have on everyone. Try to include a backup facilitate that staff can work from in the plan. With technology today, most of your staff should be able to work from home however you need to document how you will get everyone up and running. If you have another location, maybe you move everyone to that location till things are back to normal.
• What if power is out for a length of time?  Start planning and thinking about this, because you don’t need a disaster for this to impact your business. You don’t realize how much electricty impacts you until you don’t have it. No air, no phones, no computers, no lights, nada! Don’t wait till you are in the dark to think about this. Maybe it is a good time to invest in a generator and store it just in case.
• How will you communicate with your staff so they know the office is closed, re-opened, etc? Do they know what to do? If you have this plan documented, every employee should read it and know it. Review the plan every year to make sure key contacts and processes are updated as things change. Make sure every employee reviews and signs off on it.
• Do you have backups of all important data, customer numbers, insurance paperwork, employee information, etc? Always keep a backup in a safe place, offsite. It is recommended to use to a secure location or a company that offers data security (like Iron Mountain) to keep your backups.
• What will you do with your valuable equipment such as computers, servers, phone systems, etc? You have invested a lot of money into equipment for your business, and you should include a plan for protecting it. If you live in an area where you get seasonal hurricanes or anything else that you get enough of a warning on, prepare your equipment. Whether your plan states something as simple as making sure equipment is turned off and not on the floor, it is better to say it then pay the repercussions later on.

Hopefully these questions have got you thinking about how to protect your business in the case of a disaster. If you have other tips or questions you think our readers should consider, please leave a comment so the discussion won’t end.

For all TruVisibility customers, we got your back! TruVisibility is hosted and backed up on the Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Platform. You can have the peace of mind in knowing that your website is safe in the event of a disaster. To learn more about TruVisibility, click here.