Does your business have a disaster recovery plan ready?

As you go about budgeting and forecasting for your business’ future IT needs, one element that it’s absolutely vital not to overlook is security fortification. This is especially true right now – there are numerous cyberthreats out there lurking that could potentially disrupt the continuity and stability of your business.

But even when you have the best security measures in place that money can buy, IT breakdowns can still happen. Attackers can penetrate your defenses; human error can cause data-related issues as well. This is why it’s equally crucial to prioritize disaster recovery (DR).

This has been a major trend in business in recent years – organizations are making DR a greater point of emphasis. And it’s not hard to see why, as a major blow to your business continuity could be a nightmare scenario for your business overall. According to Gartner research, 70% of organizations that go down for 96 hours or more simply never recover. Therefore, IT leaders are doing everything they can to ensure their apps and data will always be available, even if a disaster occurs.

Is your business doing everything it could be doing? If not, there’s no better time than the present to ramp up your efforts. It’s always better to have a strategy in place before the unexpected happens, rather than scramble to figure one out on the fly later.

To that end, here are four strategies that can help you plan ahead.

Know your employees

Your business continuity plans should revolve around your people. What’s the daily workflow like for your most essential employees? What data do they need on a daily basis, and how are they storing and accessing that data? Once you understand your people, you can plan effectively to keep their daily operations afloat.

Know your business

What are the most essential core functions of your business? What are the data structures and work processes that enable them to stay running day in, day out? Assess how your business runs and what it needs to be successful, then build a disaster recovery plan that’s centered around those top priorities.

Get buy-in from leadership

Whenever your business encounters a crisis, you need to lean on your senior leaders to guide you through it – and an IT crisis is no different. So as you go about your DR planning, make sure your leadership is bought in, knows the importance of business continuity, and understands the role they play in shepherding the organization through a potential disaster.

Hammer out all the details

Your disaster recovery plan should be comprehensive, with every single step spelled out in detail. The moment a crisis hits, you should know what to do, when and where to do it, and who needs to be held accountable for every stage in the process. If you don’t have all the details ironed out, then keep working until you do.

As for us at Zones, we understand how difficult it can be to maintain business continuity – and that’s exactly why we have solutions that are designed to help. For instance, take a closer look at Zones Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). With IaaS, you’ll be able to automate everyday processes, secure your workloads, and ensure that your IT is always on and your people are always productive.

There are a lot of IT providers out there that can support your IT infrastructure, but there’s only one quite like Zones. We have a worldwide partner and service delivery practice, as well as strong relationships with leading manufacturers like Microsoft. This means we’re always well positioned to get you the IT solutions you need – and on top of that, the service you’ll get from our well trained experts is second to none.

To learn more, connect with a Zones Account Manager today.

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