Listen to: "Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Plans: Why It’s Critical to Update"
Your organization is always vulnerable to any number of natural and man-made disasters. Just in the last few months business continuity has been threatened by power outages, winter storms, political upheaval, and a global pandemic. Continuity is constantly threatened by hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, earthquakes, fires, flooding, software and hardware failures. We can’t forget the continually increasing and escalating instances of cyberattacks, along with all the risks that accompany them. Regardless of whether your business is a large corporation or a small-medium business (SMB), the effects of any one of these events could be devastating. While there is no sure way to avoid certain risks, there are things you can do to protect your business from any potential fallout that may follow. Developing a tight business continuity plan (BCP) provides your disaster recovery team with a solid set of tools to perform your due diligence to give your business the best chance to reopen and recover quickly, and with as little damage to your operations and brand reputation as possible.
What Is a Business Continuity Plan?The purpose of a business continuity plan is to ensure that your standard business processes can continue during—as much as that is possible—and immediately after an emergency or disaster. Your BCP gives you insights into potential threats that may directly affect your business. Plus, it outlines prepared strategies to ensure continued operations should any potential threat become a reality. A standard business continuity plan involves the following:
Businesses – large and small – that don’t prepare for disasters pay a high price in terms of significant and costly downtime. The potential impact reaches to:
With a proactive BCP ready and at your fingertips, you can avoid costly downtime that renders your team unproductive, your customers frustrated, and your brand tarnished. Related article: Are Current Supply Chain Disruptions Causing Further Vulnerabilities? Developing a Business Continuity Plan: Where to StartNot sure how to approach the task of building a business continuity plan? Here are three simple steps to get started.
Aspects of the Business that Are Addressed in a Continuity Plan
Why Do You Need to Review and Update Your DRP?Just like you periodically get a health checkup for your body or a tune-up for your car—no matter how well they are currently functioning—you need to ensure that your organization is running at optimal capacity and is fully ready to take on any disaster that may be on the horizon. Your company is not static, and as we’ve seen in the past year, neither is the environment in which we work. The plan you created last year—or more—is already outdated. Without regularly reviewing and updating the disaster recovery plan, you risk overlooking new factors on the horizon that have the potential to devastate the business. How Often Should You Review and Test the Disaster Recovery Plan?There really is no set standard frequency mandated for reviewing and updating a disaster recovery plan. To keep everything running smoothly, we advise reviewing, testing, and updating your DRP on an annual basis. Factors That Affect Your Disaster Recovery PlanHowever, there are intermittent issues that may arise between official updates and reviews. There are a few key factors that can help you determine when you need to go off script and schedule an extra update and review. Physical Relocation of the Business.This factor may either eliminate certain risks or expose the company to new risks. An example involving natural disasters would be the potential for hurricanes along the Atlantic Coast or tornadoes in the Midwest. Changes in Key Staffing Positions.Perhaps a member of your DPR team has left the company. It is important to make sure his/her replacement is up to speed as quickly as possible and ready to enact his/her role in the disaster recovery team. It is also important to keep your regular staff up-to-date on standard system maintenance and any potential issues that may arise and how to detect them. Significant Changes in the Technological Infrastructure.Since all technological considerations are paramount to protecting data, it‘s critical to review that new additions are compliant with your DRP. This includes implementing new hardware and software and shifting to a cloud or hybrid environment. New Compliance Requirements.External factors include those mandated by regulatory standards and other legal or regional requirements. Stay abreast of your regulatory obligations to make sure you remain compliant. This factor alone may dictate the standard frequency that you choose for your organization’s updates and reviews. Related article: Everything You Need for Your Next Disaster Recovery Audit. How a Disaster Recovery Plan Should be Reviewed and TestedYour update and review of your disaster recovery plan is meant to help make sure you avoid potentially devastating effects of possible disasters over which you have no control. It is essentially a good faith exercise to ensure the ability to protect and access your data in the event of a disaster. This is to the great benefit of your company, your customers, and other stakeholders. Regularly Update Your Disaster Recovery Plan.This step serves an active and ongoing resource that you will rely on in each your reviews. Your initial disaster recovery plan was current and accurate the day you completed it, but each change that occurs—no matter how small, regarding staffing, hardware or location, etc.—is likely to alter your plan. Note every change as it occurs in a specified log that you will use as a reference in your upcoming review to make sure you don’t miss anything. Schedule Test Dates in Advance.Testing the disaster recovery plan is helpful for everyone. Your DRP is not a static manual that should lie dormant on a shelf. It is instrumental in ensuring proper staff training and provides peace of mind for your stakeholders since it lays out your commitment to the protection of their data in a potentially catastrophic event that could negatively impact their data. Perform Routine Exercises to Test the DRP’s Effectiveness.Prepare Q&As and other practical exercises to make sure your disaster recovery plan is fully functional on-demand. Provide Training for the Disaster Recovery Team.Each team member should understand their role in the disaster recovery effort and the responsibilities assigned to them within the plan. Testing exercises also serve as an opportunity for training and practice each task. Check All Contact Information.Determine all the primary, secondary, and emergency contacts, and make sure their information is current in your plan. Additionally, make sure you have all staff contact information, as well as that of vendors and key government agencies. Updating and reviewing the disaster recovery plan will help your organization function during a disastrous event and bounce back quickly after one. Related article: The Importance of Disaster Recovery for Healthcare Organizations and HIPAA Compliance. Our Team Is Here to Build Your Business Continuity PlanI.S. Partners, LLC. professionals can help you tailor a BCP to your organization’s specific needs, factoring in your business location’s risks for natural disasters and your computing system’s potential for cybersecurity breaches. We want to help you avoid disaster, when possible. And just as importantly, we want to help make sure you can get back on your feet quickly in the event of a disastrous event. Call us at 215-631-3452, request a quote, or launch a live chat to start a conversation. What is one of the leading causes of system loss seen by organizations?Human error is seen as the primary cause of most data loss in business. Other causes include hardware theft, software corruption, computer viruses, hardware impairment, natural disasters, and power failure.
Which plan is written to attempt to prevent a disaster from impacting the organization and or to lessen a disaster's impact?Business continuity plans (BCPs) are created to help speed up the recovery of an organization filling a threat or disaster. The plan puts in place mechanisms and functions to allow personnel and assets to minimize company downtime. BCPs cover all organizational risks should a disaster happen, such as flood or fire.
Why disaster recovery is needed for an organization?Having a disaster recovery plan in place helps businesses to avoid catastrophic data loss. By outlining strict regiments for the backup and recovery of data, a disaster recovery plan ensures that your data isn't only safe from an attack or outage, it is handled securely.
What is a business disaster?These range from major incidents that affect whole regions, such as natural disasters, floods or civil disorder, to problems specific to the business. These include fires, strikes, power cuts, telecommunications failures, IT security breaches and failure to comply with industry regulations.
|