Does your business have a Disaster Recovery Plan?
It should because as you probably know from both your business and your personal life, you must always expect the unexpected. Your business might be ticking along nicely today, but what about tomorrow? If disaster strikes, will you be able to make a comeback? Without a Disaster Recovery Plan in place, operations might cease, and your business could suffer the consequences.
If you haven’t constructed a Disaster Recovery Plan yet, then today should be the day you put something in place. Use the templates provided by www.templatelab.com, and work on that all-important Plan B with the staff you have around you. Despite the time it will take to put something together, your business will benefit from it should disaster strike. And when we say ‘disaster,’ we are referring to some of the following.
Reasons why you need a Disaster Recovery Plan
- In the event of a natural disaster. Mother Nature isn’t always as nurturing as she should be. In fact, she can be downright negligent! From wind to flood damage, your business could be laid to waste should Mother Nature turn sour. Therefore, you need to do two things. Firstly, put precautions in place, such as strengthening your business premises. Secondly, you need to have that Plan B in place within your Disaster Recovery Plan, such as having an alternative place of business to conduct your operations, be that sharing office space with another business, or setting yourself and your employees up with the means to work from home.
- In the event that staffing is low. What happens when you are low on staff? If the weather prevents your employees from getting into the office, or if something akin to a flu-epidemic takes hold, you may be left holding the fort alone. What will you do? Well, returning to the last point, your Disaster Recovery Plan might allow for the possibility of home working. You might also have a temping agency on speed dial in the event of a staffing emergency, and as we discussed here at financialbin.com, this might also be the time to outsource, so have those contacts at the ready!
- In the event of a computer hardware failure. A sudden power surge, a cyber attack, or failed circuitry could lead to problems within your hardware. You might then lose valuable data, and without a backup, your business might suffer. Within your Disaster Recovery Plan then, you need to consider ways to reduce the damage to your business. For starters, you might work with an off-site cloud storage facility to back up your data. You can also manually save your files to the cloud, using free resources, such as Google Docs, as well as making a backup on an external hard drive. You might also get in touch with an IT Support service, using www.onlinecomputers.com as an example, to both protect your hardware to reduce the chances of a disaster, and to rescue you from harm should the unthinkable happen.
Final Word
Never assume “it will never happen to me.” None of us are immune to a disaster, but we can take steps to protect ourselves. Today, if you haven’t already done so, put that Disaster Recovery Plan in place. This will reduce both your personal heartache and a financial headache should disaster strike tomorrow!