Your Company Shouldn’t Skip a Beat In the Face of a Disaster

The continuity of your business should be a major priority, especially considering how you and your employees rely on your business for their livelihood. But believe it or not, there are many organizations that don’t give a second thought to the preservation of their data and critical assets. Nonetheless, you need to pay proper attention to how your organization handles problems like natural disasters, data loss, hacking attacks, and other hazardous incidents.

One of the reasons that business continuity often gets neglected is because business owners feel they have more “pressing” matters to tend to. Small issues that pile up over time can eventually outweigh the importance of large problems, like implementing preventative measures to stop the loss of data. As IT professionals, we adhere to Murphy’s Law when handling technology: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” All the same, your business needs to make sure it has what it takes to endure, even under the worst circumstances.

Natural Disasters
Sometimes it feels like the world is out to get you, especially if a natural disaster strikes. Nature has the overwhelming power to topple businesses with a single blow. Floods, fires, and electrical storms can cause damage to both your physical and virtual infrastructure. Tornadoes can send your business skyward, literally. Bad storms can bring down power lines and cause power outages. No matter where you are in the world, there’s a chance a natural disaster can occur. Keep in mind that natural disasters don’t have to physically destroy your office to hurt your business; all they have to do is make it virtually impossible for you to continue normal operations.

You can make dealing with natural disasters less daunting by looking into some relatively common technology solutions. For the normal thunderstorm, you can use an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), which allows your technology to shut down safely in the event of a power outage. Once all work and applications are properly saved and closed, the UPS sends a signal to the server, which informs it that it’s safe to shut down.

Succession Planning
This is one part of business continuity that might not seem immediately apparent. All organizations have important staff members that are crucial to the success and momentum going forward. If certain staff members suddenly aren’t available to work anymore, it could have devastating side-effects, assuming that you don’t have a contingency plan to replace them. This includes making sure that you’re prepared for situations like an employee quitting, falling severely ill, being absent for an extended period of time; or, worst of all, dying. Car accidents, health problems, and other calamities often strike businesses when they least expect them to. Establishing clear succession guidelines can help to make this process easier. Even some simple cross-training can go a long way toward making it easier to deal with the void left by an experienced employee who leaves your employ.

Data Loss and Disaster Recovery
The inability to recover lost data following a disaster is one of the top reasons organizations go out of business. Sad to say, but most businesses that fail to restore their data following a data loss disaster are likely to go out of business within a year following the incident. This is why data backup and disaster recovery are critical components of a business continuity plan.

Thankfully, SMART Services is great at helping small and medium-sized businesses plan for data backup and disaster recovery. Our BDR solution is built specifically for businesses, helping them avoid unnecessary downtime. Data backups are sent to a secure, off-site data center, where they can quickly be restored in a moment’s notice. The BDR can even temporarily act as your server in the event of a hardware failure or similar disaster, giving you ample time to replace the downed server.

You don’t have to feel unprepared should a natural disaster strike. We can help you prepare your IT infrastructure for business continuity. To learn more, give us a call at (517) 258-0650.