Why your business continuity plan can’t just be reactive
If a disaster strikes your business, compromising sensitive data or bringing down important systems, you would of course want to respond quickly; you would want to limit the damage and get up and running again as soon as possible.
However, when you’re coming up with a business continuity plan for your company, you have to think beyond how you would react; you also have to implement measures that would help you prevent disasters and minimize their scope from the outset. You would need to find solutions for monitoring your business for signs of a disaster and raising the alert as soon as possible.
Thinking ahead
Identifying your most important data and programs is critical. Look at what you might afford to lose vs. what could cripple your business and possibly lead to a catastrophic loss in money.
As mentioned in a recent whimsical article from Forbes, which discusses getting your business ready for a Sharknado disaster, it’s important to identify in advance the different ways your business could face disaster. This ranges from major problems with IT services (e.g. a server that’s been hacked into) to a loss of vendor services (e.g. you’re depending on key supplies from a vendor that never come in). What could you do to prevent different kinds of disasters from occurring or reduce their scope?
Make plans and then make back-up plans. Keep your employees on board, so that they know what their roles and responsibilities would be during a disaster. Practice what you would do during a disaster. Although there’s no way to exactly replicate what would happen during a disaster or anticipate every possible event, you could still go through some exercises and practice scenarios that simulate disaster-like circumstances in order to test different aspects of your business continuity plan.
Beyond that, make sure you have a way to monitor and detect threats, and also alert people in a timely fashion to a disaster. Every second counts. And your rapid response depends on the quality of your preventative efforts and preparation.
