The Complete Business Continuity Plan – Step 3: Backups
In our last blog we started to conduct a business impact analysis on some of the key areas that are essential to any Disaster Recovery Plan and the importance of putting a planB in place to protect your business in the event of an unplanned event effecting either your IT systems or preventing you from accessing your office. We have already touched upon the importance of having a robust business continuity plan regardless of how big or small your business may be. In this blog we will continue to go through some of the key elements needed within your DR planB. At the end of our blog series you will be able to download our comprehensive guide on how to put together your own DR plan that will ensure the continuity of your business regardless of what comes your way.
As you start to produce your checklist and disaster recovery plan you will also want to consider the following elements:
Protect hard copy data
IT security strategies tend to focus on electronic data. However, most companies still have their fair share of physical documents to maintain. The typical regulated business will have an assortment of contracts, tax documents, and employee files that are just as important to business operations as the data on their hard drives. Digitize what you can and put security controls in place to minimize the loss of critical documents. Secure Cloud is an ideal way to store copies
Designate a recovery site
Have you thought about where you would locate your key staff to if you could not use your office? Having a Prepare for the worst by designating a secondary site your staff can relocate to should the primary site become inoperable. You should equip this location with everything personnel needs to recover affected systems and perform business processes.
Set up a communications program
The ability to communicate in a crisis situation is crucial. In addition to a list of emergency contacts, consider drafting sample messages ahead of time to expedite communications to partners and suppliers in crisis scenarios. A detailed communications plan will allow your BC team to coordinate their efforts and respond accordingly.
Test, measure, and update
You should test and measure every important business program for effectiveness. A business continuity plan is no exception. The purpose of testing is to run simulations that allow you to evaluate your team’s level of preparedness. Those test results can be used to tweak and update your plan over time.
Business continuity planning ensures that disruptions have minimal impact on day to day operations. Now that you have an idea what needs to be done, you can make sure your organization is ready for anything.
In our final blog in this series we will recap all of the key elements including taking a look at how the new European Data Protection Legislation will impact on disaster recovery and data backup. We’ll also provide you with details on how you can download our comprehensive guide on how to make your planB.
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