Running a business requires preparedness for potential risks and disasters. So how can you ensure your company can survive these particularly tough times we are experiencing with new threats everyday?
Having a plan can help minimize downtime and losses in the event of natural disasters, cyberattacks, or system failures. The right business continuity and disaster recovery strategies can ensure that breaks in operations are minimized or continue without disruption.
WHAT IS BCDR?
Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions are more than standard data backup. BCDR includes technical and operational frameworks for organizations to restore critical data and restart operations after an interruption or threat.
These solutions offer protection for physical, virtual, and cloud servers, as well as SaaS applications–which all need backing up.
Unfortunately, adequate data protection is often overlooked–despite its possible far-reaching serious outcomes such as operational downtime and impact on reputation.
BCDR strategies aim to implement policies and procedures that will reduce downtime and maintain essential operations in the face of any interruption in service.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY
A business continuity plan outlines an organization’s steps and procedures to keep a business running while responding to emergencies. With adequate preparation, a business continuity plan can help companies stay afloat during unexpected events.
DISASTER RECOVERY
A disaster recovery plan is a vital strategy to ensure that operations can come back online in the event of a system disruption. The strategy should identify the critical activities, systems, and processes that must be preserved or quickly recovered to maintain core business operations.
WHY CREATE A BCDR PLAN?
BCDR plans are essential for any organization, regardless of size or industry. The crucial impacts of potential threats to businesses can be measured in hours, and the cost of downtime only increases if it extends to days or weeks.
Downtime can stop your operations team and customer service from doing their job and causes significant data loss. It can also prevent customers from making purchases and ultimately affect your business’s reputation.
These delays can leave businesses open to threats, and the longer they run, the more expensive they become.
BCDR solutions can reduce downtime and protect data. In addition, optimizing BCDR processes with cloud technology increases recovery speed, offering built-in backup and security tools. Investing in BCDR solutions can help ensure that companies are protected and have a plan for potential risks or downtime.
CREATING A BCDR PLAN
BCDR encompasses contingency planning, testing, recovery processes, and developed plans to maintain the continuity of critical functions before, during, and after an incident. The plan should also include specifics on what must be done to return operations to normal following any potential incident.
TIPS FOR CREATING AN EFFECTIVE BCDR PLAN
- Identify Your Risks: The first step in creating a BCDR plan is to identify the potential risks that your business may face. Consider external and internal threats and any vulnerabilities or gaps that malicious actors could exploit.
- Assess Your Disaster Recovery Needs: Once you’ve identified the potential risks to your business, you should assess your disaster recovery needs. Consider the systems, data, and processes most critical to your business operations and what steps would be necessary to recover them in the event of a disaster. Also consider the costs of downtime and impacts of loss of services, as these can be extensive.
- Create Your Plan: Once you have identified your risks and assessed your disaster recovery needs, you can develop your BCDR plan. The plan should outline the steps to mitigate risk, respond to a disaster, and recover from the disruption. In addition, it should include detailed procedures for data backup and recovery, communication protocols, and any other processes that need to be in place for a successful recovery.
- Train Your Team: Once you have developed your BCDR plan, it’s crucial to ensure that all employees understand the plan and their roles in it.
- Test Your Plan: It’s essential to test your BCDR plan regularly (annually or bi-annually) to ensure it is effective. Testing may include simulations of various scenarios, such as power outages or cyber-attacks, to ensure the plan works as expected.
PAVING THE WAY TO SUCCESS WITH A BCDR PLAN
A BCDR plan developed by CBIZ Technology will help your organization prepare for unexpected events and minimize disruption and financial losses in the face of a disaster. You can protect your employees, customers, and data by ensuring your organization has a comprehensive BCDR plan.
The plan we develop with you will ensure continuity during downtime, protection from ransomware or other malicious cyberattacks, and rapid restoration of services and data recovery in case of an incident. This is not something you want to leave to chance or to not have regular testing to solidify and improve your defenses.
At CBIZ Technology, we can help you achieve the right level of protection at the lowest cost by creating a business continuity and disaster recovery plan to help you minimize and manage risk. Reach out today to find out how we can help you create a thorough BCDR plan.
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