Business Disaster Recovery Plan: What Every Business Needs To Be Ready For A Disaster
If you want to succeed in business, you’ve got to plan. Everyone knows that any business owner or manager worth their salt has a Plan A and a Plan B at the very least.
However, if you are one of life’s pessimists, it won’t be lost on you that you can plan for a thousand scenarios. If scenario #1001 arrives on the horizon, all of your prior planning will not have prepared you for what’s to come.
The truth is, sometimes incidents occur so far outside your control as to be unforeseeable. The fact that you can’t predict them does not change the fact that they can happen.
So, while you cannot ever fully prepare for these events – usually natural disasters, as businessinsider.com points out, they can equally be man-made horrors or just plain bad luck – it is worth considering what you will do if the worst comes to the worst. You better have your business disaster recovery plan ready!
Have a disaster planning committee
Being ready for the worst is not something any business owner can do. Disasters, such as earthquakes or extreme weather incidents, can strike many parts of the business to render your standard plans and infrastructure entirely useless.
You need to have a defined group of leaders within your business who can action a disaster plan to keep the business operating on a “ticking over” level if, for example, your premises are unusable or staff members can’t be reached. This committee should meet regularly – monthly or quarterly – to assess preparedness in key areas, and brainstorm worst-case scenarios.
Ensure your staff contact sheet is up-to-date
It’s one thing to picture a natural disaster as something that merely destroys property and leaves buildings as shells. However, extreme scenarios can happen at any time, including when you are in the workplace.
From a staff security point of view, it is vital that you have a contact sheet of staff members, with as many telephone numbers and contact details for them and for any next of kin, as possible.
Obviously, it will be essential to keep these details up-to-date and readily accessible. Create this sheet in both hard copy and digital form, and seek any new information from any staff member on the first day of each month.
Infographic created by MXOtech, a network management solutions provider
Be sure you can access business records
After the personal aspect of any disaster has been addressed, there will still be the question of the business to get back to, and with any luck, you will be able to keep operating in some form if you use your business disaster recovery plan.
Suppose the disaster has affected the tech infrastructure at your premises. In that case, you’ll need the assistance of professionals such as umbrella-ms.com to ensure that you can access customer records and other key details.
Having all of the necessary information backed up can reduce the amount of time you spend trying to get your business back up and running. In a disaster scenario, the most important thing is to deal with the human concerns first – and once that is done, you can look to get your business back on track.
