Time to Re-Evaluate your Business Continuity Plan

With the new year in full swing, and everyone settled into their jobs for 2020, now may be the perfect time to re-assess where you stand in regards to your business continuity plan.

Those words alone may strike fear in your heart. After all, it was a massive effort to put a strategic disaster plan in place, to document it all, and to make sure all of the bases were covered. Nothing has gone wrong, so is it really necessary to take an annual look at the document?

The truth is, your business is just too important to take your ability to survive a catastrophic incident for granted. The traditional statistics taught us that 60% of businesses who were not prepared for a disaster – no matter the cause – were unable to stay in business. Unfortunately the environment has only gotten more competitive in this regard. Consumers are less likely than ever to be forgiving if they cannot access their account, place an order, or speak to a representative.

Many managers and business owners assume that their business continuity plan is a “one and done” type document. Here are some reasons why you need to consider a disaster recovery plan as a living document, in need of regularly scheduled attention.

Technology Changes: If you work with a managed service firm, or if your technology is outsourced – this is not as much of an issue for you. If you maintain your own technology and servers onsite, you may have changed, upgraded or replaced technology since you wrote the plan. Whatever changes you have made,  your offsite or replacement plan needs to be updated as well.

Personnel Changes: One of the key principles of any business continuity plan is that every staff member understands their roles should there be a disaster. If the person who was designated to make initial phone calls to important clients is no longer with the company, those calls may not get done. If the person responsible for setting up a temporary call center has moved on, there could be a lot of wasted time and confusion. Revisiting your plan annually allows you to reassign important roles, and make sure that your personnel are all up to speed on what is expected of them.

Expert Tip: There should be no position at your company that only one person knows how it works. Employees should always be cross-trained in order to pick up the slack for an employee who may be absent, injured, or unable to come into work due to an emergency. Signing authority should also be given to a variety of people if their boss is not present, in order to expedite recovery operations.

Contact Information Changes: This is a great time to make sure that you have updated cell phone numbers, home numbers and addresses, and emergency contact information for each of your employees. If something happens off-hours, you may need to quickly contact your team; if something happens onsite during a work day, you may need to contact their family.

Determine if Any Technology Advances Apply: Technology is changing at a rapid pace, and there may be a better solution for your organization – one which didn’t exist at the time the plan was written. For instance, instead of multiple redundant servers, you may be able to take advantage of server virtualization technology; a solution that was either unavailable or too expensive when you wrote your plan.

It is recommended that you call in an outside professional  consultant if you do not have a business continuity expert on staff. They are more likely to spot vulnerabilities you do not see, or to be able to recommend new and innovative solutions you may not be aware of. If it is time to re-evaluate your business continuity plan, call Alliance IT for an onsite assessment. Don’t leave the survival of your company up to chance. Call today.