All You Need To Know About Disaster Recovery And Business Continuity

05 Oct All You Need To Know About Disaster Recovery And Business Continuity

If your business was in the path of Hurricane Florence, you are probably reminded of just how valuable a disaster recovery or business continuity plan is. As businesses and customers along the Eastern seaboard know all too well, a weather-related disaster often takes weeks, and in some cases like Puerto Rico, years to recover. Making plans for technology disruptions, either produced by nature or man-made, will protect your reputation, your client relationships, and your customers from losing access to services even when you do.

Critical Factors

Severe weather patterns affect businesses directly and indirectly. When even a day is lost, companies lose revenue, projects are put on hold, and employees lose critical hourly wages. If you work in industries dependent on shipping, the adverse weather will disrupt shipments as well even when you are not in the line of the natural disaster. . It may even be a reason why your clients or customer choose your competition. Most likely, they will not return.

If your business is closed due to a hurricane, no one will be available to make sales and provide customer service. You have missed a critical opportunity to provide services because of the immediate fluctuation for demand. With the demand comes an increase in production which may require a quick price increase. Knowing how weather patterns affect your business allows you to prepare for it in the future. A small ripple in business often causes an avalanche to occur when businesses are unprepared. As witnessed when Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, the heart of the nation’s energy industry, about 15 Texas oil refineries representing 25 percent of U.S. refining capacity shut down, pushing up gasoline prices.

You also need to consider the after-effects of a storm. If your business is flooded, who will handle the daily operations until you are capable of it? Property damage is a major concern, but just as you need insurance, you need a backup plan that reroutes your business to an alternative location that will allow them to worry about your operations while you worry about rebuilding. It takes years to build your reputation, but a natural disaster will potentially destroy it in minutes. (any statistics?)

What Is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster recovery provides the assets and tools you need to continue your business functions during disruptive events. When your company has a plan in place, it will reduce the loss of revenue as well as daily operating costs that are required to allow your staff to continue because you have planned for such events. Connect Partners will consult with your leaders and analyze procedures to put into place a Disaster Recovery Roadmap strategy that includes the planning, risk assessment, and the policies and procedures required for natural disasters.

What Is Business Continuity?

What will your business do in times of downtime? Connect Partners helps department leaders establish a business continuity plan by assessing available tools and identifying additional assets that allow executives to put into place procedures that ensure your company does not lose revenue, clients, or customers because of downtime or technology disruption.

Want to learn more about how Connect Partners will help you avoid disruptions? Contact us for more information on Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity plans at 410-774-1000.