Have you ever considered how your business would be able to operate without access to key documents, data, and records? Creating a thorough backup and recovery plan is the best way to prepare your business in the event of an outage. While many businesses have a plan in place, they often forget to consider the non-technical aspects of maintaining business continuity.
Here are several steps for creating a fully encompassing backup and disaster recovery plan to keep your business up and running despite an outage:
- Digitize your records. According to the latest research, 58 percent of business still rely heavily on paper processes. The danger with paper is that your business would not be able to operate effectively if physical files are lost due to a fire, theft, misfiling, water damage, or another disaster. Digitizing your paper documents can keep your data safe in the cloud, allowing your business to be up and running quickly. Digitizing records also offers benefits beyond security and business continuity, such as streamlining workflows and increasing productivity in the workplace.
- Establish a Recovery Point Objective (RPO). While all data is valuable to your organization, some parts of your data will need to be recovered faster to keep your business operating. A Recovery Point Objective outlined in your plan should identify the data that is immediately needed to get your business up and running quickly.
- Determine a Recovery Time Objective (RTO). A Recovery Time Objective will specify the amount of time needed to recover the crucial data identified in the RPO. In some cases, you may need to regain access to key data in five minutes or less.
- Consider the non-technical aspects of business continuity.
- Create a directory with contact information for employees, suppliers, and important customers, located off site or in the cloud.
- Establish a plan for notifying customers and key partners of an outage that could impact them directly.
- Determine a clear plan for how your business will continue to operate in the event of an extended outage. Will you provide your employees with training for their roles in this plan?
Contact us to learn how we can help you keep your business up and running in the event of an outage.
