Business Continuity Planning

IT DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING

Business Survival

What is Disaster Recovery planning? In a nut shell it is Risk Management, protecting your business investment. It’s the difference between your business surviving a disaster or ‘going under’ financially.

Yes! You need a disaster recovery plan. Here’s why.

Would you leave your insurance policy unpaid for a day, a week or even a month? You likely have insurance for a whole range of things such as Public Liability, Building Insurance, Motor Insurance to name a few. But who is insuring your information?

If you don’t have a specific policy that covers your data loss, intellectual property or good will then your business is effectively self insured. If you really count the cost, can your business afford such a loss? Imagine what you would do tomorrow if you lost all your paper work and computer systems today.

Gartner research found that an estimated two out of five enterprises that experience a disaster will go out of business within five years of the event. - Gartner

43% of companies never resume business following a major fire. Another 35% are out of business within 3 years. - U.S. National Fire Protection Agency

How will you know who owes you money when your accounting records are lost? Does your sales team remember the contact details of all your clients? What about vendor Service Level agreements or contracts you require. Consider the hours spent on client projects that you have not invoiced or fiduciary responsibilities you maintain with clients, partners or investors.

If taken in bite size pieces, you can make massive improvements in protecting your business today. At a level you can afford today.

Just as your Public Liability Insurance is not a project for ‘another day’ neither should protecting your business information. Every little bit you do helps.

Contact BARRON IT today via our issue tracking system. or Phone: (02) 4627 9929

Like it or not 9/11 changed the world. Disaster Recovery Planning was not born on this day but it did come of age in the eyes of prudent business owners. An optimistic outlook might suggest this won’t happen to us. And I hope it does not.

Regardless of our geopolitical location, proximity to major infrastructure or business profile our clients are increasingly aware of the need to have survival plans for a disaster or pandemic and they expect their service providers to have one too.

If you think for a moment what is the general consumers Disaster Recovery Plan?

Let’s pick one example, there are many, but imagine a property fire for example, how does the home owner’s plan differ to your business?

  The Home Owner Plan Business with No DR Plan Business with DR Plan
Time of Disaster
1. Protect Life Get down low and go go go. Building Evacuation according to planned and regularly tested fire drills. Building Evacuation according to planned and regularly tested fire drills.
2. Damage Control Call Fire Brigade and Ambulance, do a head count of family and pets. Call Fire Brigade and Ambulance, do a head count of staff and visitors. Your building fire suppression systems are now actively destroying your paper based records and computers systems. Call Fire Brigade and Ambulance, do a head count of staff and visitors. Your building fire suppression systems are now actively destroying your paper based records and computers systems.
The long road to recovery
3. End of a long day. -Get a Hotel for the wife and kids. Drop the pets at a friend’s place. Pray your insurance is up to date.

-So the last 10 years of your life just went up in smoke or crashing to the ground, working 60hrs a week and missing your kids grow up.

-Wonder if your insurance is enough to cover at least your assets.

-Kiss goodbye to your paper and electronic records.

-Get some sleep you’re going to need it.

-Now’s a good time to panic!

-Initiate your tested IT recovery plan.

-Wonder if your insurance is enough to cover at least your assets.

-Kiss goodbye to your paper and electronic records.

-Get some sleep you’re still going to need it.

-Sleep well! Your DR Team are working to a plan.
4. The day after -Call the boss, tell him you won’t be in today.
Call the insurance company and meet with an assessor.
Go shopping for a new wardrobe.

-Call your phone company to have the phones diverted to your mobile.

-Ask your PA to organise a press conference.

-Issue a press release and inform your clients, vendors and partners what has happened. Advise them you won’t be trading for 3-4 months and ask them to send their contact details to your new hotmail address.

-Call your insurance company and organise an appointment with the assessor.

-Ask your commercial real estate agent to start looking for a vacant office space, suitable to your needs.

-Advise your staff to take forced holidays. Those without holidays will need to go on leave without pay.

-Your tested contact alert system has advised staff to attend the designated office recovery centre to continue normal trading as per the most recent test.

-Other staff will be instructed to work remotely from home.

-The business recovery team has followed the tested plan and diverted all phones, faxes and mail. All controlled computer systems are operational and electronic copies of all scanned paper work is available.

-The recovery office is ready for business as usual.

-Your clients need not know a thing, unless you want them too.
5. Day Two -Return to work and then home again. Sorry, to your hotel.

-Go to Officeworks and buy office equipment to operate out of your garage for the next 3 months while you find and fit out a new place of business.

-While your business continues to earn income use this cash to find and fit out a new work place.
6. Day Three and beyond  

-Get your IT guy to order some servers. 10-15 Days lead time.

-Maybe you buy some notebooks from the local PC shop (hope there are some left to buy if you’re not the only business affected).

-Build the servers and attempt to restore from the last backup tape you took home… hope it works (20% don’t).

-Try not to stress about how you’re going to get all your client account information and intellectual property back, stressing now is not going to help much.

  
Months later
7. Final State -Move into your new home. -Attend bankruptcy court because your business couldn’t meet contractual agreements and you ran out of money.

-Plan for and resume normal trading.

-Buy a new boat, you deserve it.

Our home owners plan is a pretty simple one, he only need worry about a few people and maybe the family photo album at best. Regardless of this our Fire Services still tell us to test the fire alarm once a year, change the battery and talk to the family about how to escape a fire. All wise advice from family and friends is to keep your insurance policy up to date because disasters do strike at the most inconvenient times.

In business it is different! It’s a whole lot more complicated and there is a heck of a lot more at stake. Unlike the home owner you are responsible for the safety of your staff, mountains of paper records for taxation, accounts receivable and contracts you have with customers and vendors. Then there are electronic records and all the data now being stored on the servers or worse; on individual Desktop PC’s. Trust me you cannot carry it all out under your arm.

"Many SMBs don't believe they will ever be affected by a disaster the magnitude of what happened on September 11. But the reality is that it's the hundreds of comparatively minor vulnerabilities, such as an e-mail virus or a sustained power outage, that pose the biggest threat to derailing normal operations because of their greater likelihood of occurring," said Jim Browning, vice president and research director for Gartner

Every little step you take toward a mature Business Continuance Plan improves your business chance of survival after such an event.

CALL BARRON IT TODAY (02) 4627 9929

Schedule your appointment to speak with our IT Disaster Recovery and business continuity specialist. Start protecting your business information today.

About Business Continuity Planning

Business Continuity Planning is a collection of disciplines that include the following;

Risks Analysis


dont you THINK YOU SHOULD re-evaluate your IT risk
  • Geographic risks
  • Politics Risks
  • Natural Disasters
  • Accidental damage
  • Malicious damage
  • Proximity to risk

Business Impact Analysis

  • Business Process Analysis
  • Business Asset Analysis
  • Business Resource Analysis
  • Defining the Critical – potential business failure or untenable risk
  • Defining the Important –High value if lost but can survive
  • Defining the Expendable – Loss causes no significant short or long term impact
  • Defining costs to business for each lost process asset or resource

Business Systems and IT Strategy Planning

  • Defining acceptable Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
  • Defining acceptable Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Crisis management plan

What to do in the middle of a disaster

  • Protect Life
  • Protect Assets
  • Protect Resources

Testing your crisis management plan

Improving the plan

Disaster Recovery plan

What to do as the dust settles

  • Make ready your assets
  • Enable your resources
  • Manage your process

Business Resumption plan

How you return your business to normal state.

Testing the Plan

An un-tested plan is worse than no plan at all. It cost you money, and it’s unlikely to save your business.

CALL BARRON IT TODAY (02) 4627 9929