Is your business continuity plan in step with the progress made online?

Posted By on February 20th, 2019

Undoubtedly, if you own a business today you will rely on IT systems in some shape or form to assist in the running of your business. This may be your website – your store front if you run an ecommerce business, a platform from which to manage your customer services function through to storage of business sensitive and customer data just to name a few.

A lot has changed when it comes to IT systems over recent years – the functionality, the sophistication and the need for a business to be always on and available to their customers. Likewise, the role of data in a business’s success, the ability to access data and the importance of ensuring the security of customer data has never been more important. But with this reliance on IT, businesses are finding that the advantages also come with potential weaknesses and risks to their business survival should these IT systems fail or suffer an outage.

New risks are emerging all the time when it comes to IT systems – the threat of cybercrime continues to loom large to businesses of all sizes. Viruses and phishing attacks for example can have a devastating impact – particularly if you haven’t given thought to how you would respond to such an incident.

How would your business cope with a period of IT downtime?

  • Have you thought about the processes and procedures that you need to put in place to cope with the impact this would have on your business?
  • Do you know which of your IT systems are critical to your individual business functions and therefore where to focus your energy on recovery if disaster should strike?

In a business world where IT is so important it is key that you have a business continuity plan in place to set out the processes and procedures that you will undertake if disaster does strike. A disaster recovery plan, which gives a more technical guide to how you get your business-critical systems re-established, should also be developed to work hand in hand with your business continuity plan.

In such a fast-paced area, it is not only important that you have business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place, it is important that you test them and keep them regularly updated to reflect any changes in your IT infrastructure. This will ensure all IT functionality, new and old, is continually accounted for in your planning. A set of plans written 5 years ago are unlikely to fully reflect the current state of your business’s IT reliance in today’s environment. 

At First Recovery we offer specialist disaster recovery services which aim to get your business back up and running fast if the worst should happen. Our service also gives you free access to our business continuity planning tool. This can be accessed by all of your staff – that way everyone will know instantly what to do if disaster should strike.