Disruptions to your business due to natural or man-made disasters can mean a severe hit to your cash flow just when you need it most.
If your office is hit by something like a tornado, flood, or fire, that means delays in responding to customers, difficulty processing sales transactions, and employees that still need a paycheck, but don’t have an office to work in.
Planning for business continuity in the aftermath of an unforeseen disaster is something that is vital for every business, and having an IT pro to guide you through it, is essential.
Our Business Continuity Planning Team at Technology Visionaries helps businesses in North and Central New Jersey, Union County and Middlesex County put solid disaster recovery plan in place so they can survive and continue to thrive should disaster strike.
We find that many companies aren’t quite sure what should go into a business continuity plan or where to start.
In this article, you’ll learn Business Continuity Plan 101. We’ll tell you what it is, why you need it, and why hiring an IT pro to help is the best way to go.
What is Business Continuity Planning?
Most companies have an insurance policy for their premises in the case of damage. Having a business continuity plan is like insurance for keeping your business running in the event of a disaster.
Business continuity is about keeping your business running and the operations from being disrupted due to an unforeseen event. Disruptions can cost money, not only due to the immediate extra expenses from disaster recovery but also in lost revenues.
Technology Visionaries implements a comprehensive game plan for our clients to recover quickly in the event of a disaster, which includes the following.
- Complete backup protection for all data
- Automated and always up-to-date file backups
- Elimination of liability and risk from lost customer data
- Reduced time to get back to business with cloud-based solutions
- Safeguard of email and other critical company communications
Why It’s Important to Develop a Reliable Business Continuity Plan with an Trusted IT Pro
Planning for business continuity after a disaster is more than just having everyone take their computer’s home or to another safe place. It’s about keeping your business running from any location without skipping a beat (or sales opportunity).
An IT professional, like Technology Visionaries, understands how to keep business data both secure and flexible to be accessed anywhere at the same time. Because we’ve worked with multiple clients over the years, we can make sure everything from phone and email transfer to full data recovery are implemented immediately to reduce costly downtime.
Just one hour of downtime costs a small business about $8,000. (Infascale)
Each hour it takes you to get back to business after a disaster can cost $8,000 if you’re a small business or $74,000 if you’re a medium sized company. The average time it takes a business to recover from a disaster is 18.5 hours.
That’s a $148,000 for an average small business owner… unless they have a solid business continuity plan in place to avoid that downtime.
Here are key reasons you need a business continuity plan, no matter what size company you have.
Avoid Lost Business and Market Share
If something like a fire strikes, after the shock of the physical damage to the building, the lost business while you’re working to get your computers and phones back up can be just as devastating.
A properly executed business continuity plan can have your company back taking orders and answering customer inquiries within minutes instead of hours or days.
Instill Confidence in Your Brand
Companies that have a solid business continuity plan in place not only instill confidence in their customers, it also enhances employee morale and a sense of security. There’s an increased sense of confidence doing business with or working for a company that has the ability to plan for and continue operating in the event of an unexpected crisis.
Improve Security
As you work with an IT pro to put a plan in place for uninterrupted operations after a man-made or natural disaster, it’s common to find security vulnerabilities in how you store or transmit data. You may find that your backup system wasn’t as secure as you thought, for example.
Planning for business continuity is an opportune time to identify and address any security vulnerabilities.
Minimize Recovery Costs After a Disaster
If you’ve done the homework up front and put an IT infrastructure plan in place for disaster recovery, your post disaster costs can be significantly decreased.
Instead of paying for emergency service to try to get your systems up and running again while the hours tick away, you would simply implement the plan you and your IT partner had already put into place.
Avoid Loss of Files and Company Information
Most files that a company keeps are now in digital format. If you’re backing up only to an onsite hard drive, if disaster strikes, all those critical company files could be lost.
Part of business continuity planning is ensuring your files are safely backed up and restorable off-premises. So while the physical equipment, furnishings, and building might be impacted, all your company’s files, data, and IT infrastructure are safe and sound and easily recovered.
Need Help with a Business Continuity Plan?
Technology Visionaries offers specialized and affordable business continuity plans to ensure your business and livelihood are safe in the event of a disaster.
Don’t wait until it’s too late and your business is in desperate recovery mode, we’ve got solutions right now that can help. Let’s talk!
Schedule a free consultation online or give us a call at 732-587-5960 today.