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Business Continuity
When someone says, “Disaster Recovery” what do you think about?Chances are you are only considering part of the picture.Disaster Recovery has a much wider scope than what most people think. See how our professional team plans for ALL the possible contingencies.
There have been 79 Presidential Declared Disasters in the Southeastern U.S. from 2000 to 2007 with the vast majority of those being in Florida (FEMA, 2007), and it seems that small and medium sized businesses get hid the hardest. The SCORE organization reports 43% of companies that experience a disaster and have no emergency plan never reopen and of the ones that do reopen, only 29% of those are still operating 2 years later (SCORE, 2007).
Many business owners in Florida immediately think of hurricanes when talking about disasters. They figure that if they can make it through the hurricane season, they’ll be okay. But natural disasters are not your only worry. There are also business specific disasters such as an electrical fire in your building or theft, both from outsiders and employees. There are disgruntled employees. There are hackers and hardware failures. There are accidental deletions. There are lost laptops, disks, and thumb drives. There are a lot of things to think about. Don’t think that just because there hasn’t been a major hurricane in your area for a while that you are relatively safe.
 Disaster Recovery Plans and Business Continuity Plans are an aggregate of ideas that have been formalized and written down, and the action items have been completed and implemented. There is a difference between a disaster recovery plan and a business continuity plan. Generally, disaster recovery plans are short-term (think in terms of hours and days) while business continuity plans are long-term (think in terms of days, weeks, and months).
 Many businesses do some sort of backup, but that is only part of it. What do you do if there is no electricity at your location? What if the building is damaged? What plan do you have in place if half of your staff evacuate and don’t return? What if you can’t reach your customers?Questions like these are all part of the bigger picture. There are so many questions to ask that it is easy to miss some critical areas of your Business Continuity Planning. If you are not an accountant, you wouldn’t try to manage all of your accounting functions by yourself would you? When it comes to the survivability of your business, it is a good idea to get the advice of professionals who have helped other business protect their interests. Call Connectwise today and see how we can help to secure your future even in the times of uncertainty.
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