What Is Business Continuity?
Business continuity is the process through which a business recovers from a disaster. These disasters can be natural (tornado, hurricane, earthquake) or man-made: identity theft, viruses, or “ransomware,” where your data is held hostage until your company pays the ransom to the criminal. Through the process of putting together a sensible business continuity plan, you and your team will know how to handle one of these disasters when they strike. Business continuity begins by assessing the various risks your company faces and making a plan for addressing them. In this way, it also helps you re-assess your data protection process, helping you improve your security and protect your company and customers better. Once you have business continuity plans in place for every likely disaster, your team will be able to quickly react to such a disaster. They will know where to go, who is in charge of what, and which services and data to restore first.
Who Needs a Business Continuity Plan?
Every business in Central Maryland should have a business continuity plan, even small businesses with only a handful of employees and new businesses that aren’t bringing in a large amount of money. If your business is affected by a disaster of any sort, it can cause chaos and destroy your business. You may not have an office for employees to go to, or you may not be able to take charge of the situation. Having a plan tells employees what to do, where to go, how to contact you and other mission-critical staff and contacts, and what to say to customers and the press. This process will minimize the amount of time your company is out of commission, thus reducing the amount of money lost and bad publicity. Because a disaster can leave you and your employees shaken, confused, and overwhelmed, having a plan gives you something to fall back on.
How Business Continuity Plans Should Change Over the Years
When a company in Central Maryland puts together a business continuity plan, they often put the plan in a binder or on a shared drive and leave it there until it’s needed. Years pass, and an unexpected disaster happens. Unfortunately, it’s something the business continuity plan doesn’t cover, or the company has changed so much that half the steps in the plan no longer apply. This is why it’s important that your business continuity plan grows and changes over the years. New plans may need to be created that deal with risks that didn’t exist when the plan was originally written. Some plans may need to be updated to take into account the company’s growth over the years. The leadership team of your company should review the continuity plan regularly to ensure that it is up to date and is addressing the correct risks for your business as they change.
The Benefits of a Business Continuity Plan
By having a business continuity plan in place for your business in Central Maryland, you and your team will know exactly what to do when a disaster strikes. You’ll also have a much better idea of which risks are more likely to affect your business. By performing a risk assessment, you’ll learn where your company is vulnerable, allowing you to take steps to address these vulnerabilities and further reduce the risks involved. You can recover more quickly following a disaster, reducing its impact on your profits and your company’s overall health. Simply put, you’ll be more in control after something horrible happens. During a crisis, it’s easy for things to get overlooked or done incorrectly. With a business continuity plan from Exceed I.T., your business will emerge fully-functional and intact.
Benefits
- Peace of mind
- Experts in data recovery
- Offsite backups
- Secure your data
- Risk assessment
- Proactive management
- Vulnerability detection
- Reduce downtime
- Data replication
- Custom disaster recovery plans
