Regardless of your industry, a robust business continuity plan is essential. It includes backup systems and disaster recovery plans, emergency contact lists, and detailed protocols that can help you maintain or restore critical processes in the event of a disruption.
A successful continuity strategy starts with a thorough business impact analysis. Learn how to avoid common BIA mistakes while developing a tailored solution for your business.
AnytechSD IT continuity strategies ensure business success by integrating robust systems, agile processes, and proactive risk management, fostering resilience and adaptability in today’s dynamic technological landscape.
1. Invest in Backup and Recovery
A reliable backup and recovery strategy can save your business from losing valuable information to a cyberattack or natural disaster. It can also ensure that your customers and clients trust that their data is safe with you.
The first step in creating a business continuity plan is to assess your current IT systems and processes and identify which ones are most critical. Then you need to determine how much downtime you can afford and what the loss to business would be if these processes were interrupted for a day, a week or longer.
A business continuity plan will then help you to create an IT Service Continuity Management (ITSCM) strategy and define plans for reducing the impact of a disaster-level incident on services. These plans will address a range of issues from minor technical problems through to major incidents that could require the relocation of services. It will also incorporate the identification of the risk involved in these events and how these risks are to be managed through an organisation’s existing risk management process.
2. Deploy a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
Businesses generate large amounts of data that can be lost or compromised by hardware failure, human error, hacking and malware. A robust DR plan includes backups that enable the restoration of critical systems and data files. Identifying data that needs to be restored as the highest priority allows the organization to minimize downtime. The DRP should also include a plan to restore hardware, standardized software applications and other components in the most time-efficient manner possible.
Robust disaster recovery plans address multiple scenarios from middle-of-the-road situations to worst-case scenarios (e.g., loss of the company’s main building). The resulting plan gets down to the nitty-gritty on how an organization will keep going during and after a crisis. It details roles and responsibilities, including who is responsible for making decisions, and it addresses the company’s recovery time objective and recovery point objective. The DRP should be documented, tested and updated as needed. This may include testing new hardware and software to ensure compatibility, as well as updating the DRP on a regular basis to take advantage of system enhancements.
3. Build a Business Continuity Team
The tumultuous events of recent years, from extreme weather to cyberattacks, have made business continuity a top concern for business leaders. While many organizations have disaster recovery plans in place, creating a business continuity plan can help ensure that the company can stay operational during a crisis.
It’s critical to include all departments and business units in the planning process, so that everyone has an idea of how to respond if a disaster occurs. Additionally, it’s important to have senior leadership buy-in on this process. This will help to ensure that the plan is taken seriously and not treated as a mere checkbox exercise.
Ultimately, the business continuity plan can help protect your business reputation, maintain contractual obligations with customers and partners, and even improve competitive positioning. However, this is only possible if the business has a well-documented and detailed plan in place. It’s also important to test the plan periodically to make sure that it is up-to-date with current processes.
4. Schedule Regular Testing
The process of building a business continuity plan can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. However, this effort is incredibly important to ensure that an organization is prepared in the event of an unexpected disruption.
The first step in the process involves assessing business processes to determine which are most critical, and which are most vulnerable. This information is used to define the process Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and determine recovery priority.
Once a business continuity plan is in place, it must be tested on an ongoing basis to ensure that it will work as intended in the event of a disaster. Testing provides valuable insights, including any areas that need to be improved. Additionally, it helps prevent “proactive interference,” where older material limits the retention of new materials.
Companies that embrace resilient strategies can minimize downtime and unwanted costs, protecting their reputation and upholding their commitment to customers and stakeholders.