Tweet

Business Continuity is not just about backups....

Guest post by: Robert Rutherford

Article Overview: The amount of businesses I speak to who don’t have a Business Continuity Plan is horrendous. I usually get the stock reply of ‘but we do backups’. Doing backups is not preparing your business for all potential eventualities that could hinder, damage or destroy your business. Here's a few points to get you thinking...

Business Continuity is not just about backups....

The amount of businesses I speak to who don't have a Business Continuity Plan is horrendous. I usually get the stock reply of ‘but we do backups'. Doing backups is not preparing your business for all potential eventualities that could hinder, damage or destroy your business. Anyway, regarding backups - the problem is that it can take days to get a business up and running using normal data/system backups, even if you have the spare hardware (servers, etc) to restore onto at hand. What if you don't have spare hardware to hand? Actually, if you haven't tested restoring your systems, how can you be sure you'll get operational at all?

We all know the scarily high statistics about companies without Business Continuity Plans going to the wall, so I'm still surprised by how many companies are prepared to take huge risks by not having trusted plans in place.

Here's an initial 6 things to start thinking about when BCP comes onto your agenda -

1. Determine how long you can live without data and systems. You probably have an understanding of the time you can afford to lose with no access to key systems and data, and how many hours or days of lost data you could arguably manage without. Once you define this, you can effectively balance desired recovery times and risk tolerance against a budget.

2. Plan for all eventualities. Downtime, however it rears it's head - fire, flood, power outages, chemical leaks, transport strikes, hardware failure, even flu pandemics - will hurt your business financially. You should consider all possibilities and have a documented strategy to deal with the risks you can identify.

3. It's more than just IT. As part of your planning process you should be indentifying key information, systems, people and processes, and how they all interact to keep your business running. Then envisage what would happen were you to lose any, or all, of these key ‘assets'.

4. Scrutinise your suppliers. In business, it's not just about you; you're almost certainly reliant to some degree on other companies. It's fine to have a well thought-out continuity plan but have your key suppliers got plans of their own in place to ensure they can still deliver a service to you if they encounter problems or downtime? Check them out.

5. Understand the technologies available. Effective technologies to protect businesses from disaster used to be notoriously expensive and were typically aimed at large multi-nationals with generous budgets. Now virtualisation, replication and vaulting technologies will fit the SME budget, and if you're astute, you'll find you can implement some without charge.

6. Test & communicate the plan. There's no point defining your business continuity plan and leaving it in a drawer. To be able to trust it, you need to prove it and tell people about it. Test it regularly, perhaps every 3 to 6 months or at the very least once a year. If the first time you test your plan is when an emergency occurs, then you could be in trouble. Ensure that the human side of the BCP is tested and proven, not just the IT parts: make sure everyone in the organisation is aware of the procedures and what part they must play should the BCP need to be invoked. The more you test the more routine it will become and the slicker your recovery will be, saving you money and perhaps even the business itself.

The above is in no way a comprehensive list of items to consider - it's just a number of elements to demonstrate there are other areas that need to be considered. You'll find plenty of resources and templates on the internet (many of them free) to help you plan. If you aren't sure what you are looking for then send me an email and I'll dig out / draw up an example.

Here's another way to think of it: You pay for insurance policies, you lock the server room, you close your windows, you put the building alarm on... but you don't know how you'll deal with a disaster? Madness!

Related Articles
  Backup Your Computer: Insure It Against Disaster
  Acer Laptop Backup
  5 Steps to a Successful Continuity Program
  Business Continuity Plan
  Data Loss - The Scariest Term in Business Today
  The data storage prayer
  Protect your data with backup software
  Don't Be Vulnerable to Business Security Threats: Avoid These Common Mistakes to Protect Critical Data and Maintain Business Continuity
  Everything You Need to Know About Online Backup Services
  100 Ways to Succeed #95
  Web Hosting Company
  7 Tips to Increase Wordpress Security
  Backups - Don't Leave It Too Late
  Extended Warranties: Sensible Insurance or Waste of Money?
  3 Ways of System Restore to Remove Windows Problems
  Office Technology Q & A
  Service Continuity -- Key Factor To Consider While Selecting Your Outsourcing Vendor
  Key Team Roles - What Happens If,,,
  Considering BCP in relation to Cloud/SaaS
  How to Run Your Business Like Tony Soprano...not get whacked.

Article Tags: BCP, Business Continuity, business protection, Disaster recovery, DR, IT systems



Related Forum Posts
Re: How do you back up your computer? - I am the CEO of Backblaze and new to this community, but noticed you were discussing Backblaze and backup. We found sophisticated users historically had been doing some type of backups - often burning DVDs or saving files to USB drives. Unfortunately, much like eating healthy and going to the gym, doing backups falls off the list of to do's and does not get done. This is why we started Backblaze - with the hope that you would never have to ask "How do you do backups?"...because they just happen automatically all the time. I hope we can help many of you protect your personal and business data from being lost. Gleb
Re: How do you back up your computer? - [quote="budmang":34r42pwb]I am the CEO of Backblaze and new to this community, but noticed you were discussing Backblaze and backup. We found sophisticated users historically had been doing some type of backups - often burning DVDs or saving files to USB drives. Unfortunately, much like eating healthy and going to the gym, doing backups falls off the list of to do's and does not get done. This is why we started Backblaze - with the hope that you would never have to ask "How do you do backups?"...because they just happen automatically all the time. I hope we can help many of you protect your personal and business data from being lost. Gleb[/quote:34r42pwb] Hi budmang I have checked your site and I discovered it is what every one need to backup their files. Is the $5 monthly an introductory fees or is it gong to change?
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Stable income essential - It’s very essential to have a stable income flow to avoid this situation. Without a permanent income taking loan is big risk, depending on your financial backups and background you must ensure that you take more efforts to earn and make up for expenses then take a loan.
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Let's Skip the Offshore Horror Stories

E Mail Marketing Campaigns

Word of Mouth Marketing Tips Fuel Success

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.