When Disaster Strikes, What’s Next For Your Business?

Monica Morris • December 19, 2018

If a natural disaster should strike, such as a hurricane, tornado or an earthquake, you will want to make sure your business is prepared ahead of time with a Disaster Recovery Plan. This is a plan that will guide you through which steps to take in order to keep your business up and running in the event of a disaster. With disaster recovery (dr) the goal is to create a plan that will help to have fewer interruptions and/or loss of data for your company.

Take a moment and ask yourself, is your business prepared in case something catastrophic should happen? What would happen to your devices or your information technology should a disaster take place? There are disaster recovery strategies to follow that should be set up ahead of time. Examples of these strategies are regular testing of your plan, educating your staff, and having critical documentation readily available. Critical documentation could include a list of software and their license keys, and the system to be used in the recovery process.

Now that we went over a few disaster recovery strategies, let’s take a look at what happens when a disaster really does strike. What is next for your business? Here are some basic guidelines to follow if your business is affected by a disaster and you need to use your Disaster Recovery Plan:

1. First off, it may be a bit chaotic and that’s OK. Try to stay calm and focused. What you will want to do is schedule a meeting with your management team, IT team and/or managed service provider. It’s good to meet with your team and go over high priority issues that are mission critical and are required in order for the business to operate.

Here are a few items to go over in a meeting:

  • How will employees have access to critical business items such as data or client information?
  • Where can this data be found?
  • Establish an alternate location to meet at if you can’t be at your main office.

 

2. Store your data offsite and backup your files at another location. We obviously want to hope for the best but if a disaster should happen and there is physical damage at your office, you will at least have peace of mind knowing that your data is OK.

If you do find yourself in the midst of a disaster, have a set of directions available for you and your employees so everyone can find and access the data backup you are storing offsite. Provide specific instructions on how these backup files can be obtained as well. It is important to have access to these files after a disaster. This can truly save your business and make it so you can continue operating. Moreover, to be completely thorough also do have hard copies of your data on hand and stored safely at a different location.

 

3. If you are working with a managed service provider and they have developed your disaster recovery plan, it is important to have specific notes from your MSP about who will handle what between you and your MSP in the event of a disaster. Your agreement should include how fast of a response is expected from your MSP and what aspect of your business is covered by the recovery plan. Have phone numbers and email addresses readily available in case you need to contact your MSP after any type of disaster.

 

4. Don’t forget you do have a plan in place. Make sure to find your plan right away and put it into action. It will help to identify what roles people will play in making sure business operations don’t fail and data is not lost. You will know exactly who is taking care of what during an emergency.

 

Extra Tip! Test out your plan before a disaster hits – this way you have an idea of how your plan will play out when there really is a disaster. And you will also know if anything needs to be updated for your plan so it will run smoothly.

 

Interested in adding a Disaster Recovery Plan to your business? SDTEK can help. Contact us today to learn more about our secureTEK  Backup and Disaster Recovery service and how it can help your business if faced with a disaster.

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