Business Continuity Planning...
It's Not Just For Large Businesses Anymore
Large businesses are not the only organizations that need Business Continuity plans; small businesses face the same kinds of disaster risks as large businesses, many times without the financial resources of the large business. Small businesses account for 60% of the Gross National Product each year, and employ 70% of the employees in America. For small companies, large-scale Business Continuity planning tools are just not fiscally feasible. Most of the time, they are also not necessary.
Disaster Recovery vs Business Continuity
For many years the Information Technology departments of large businesses have been implementing Disaster Recovery plans. These plans focused mainly on getting the data center back up and running, and making sure the data was available by backing up to tape and keeping those tapes off-site.
This methodology was fine until the Internet entered the business world, because a business could afford to be down for a period of time to recover. With the advent of the Internet, and 24x7 access to corporate data, this type of planning proved to be inadequate.
Business continuity was born of the need to keep the business operating, even in a limited capacity, until full operations could be restored. So Business Continuity planning became much more than just making sure that the data center was safe, it meant being able to keep the business going.
Redundancy Is Key
When creating a Business Continuity plan, it is critical that companies be realistic about the people involved, and plan for those crucial people to have backups trained for their duties. Those crucial people might have left the company, be injured, or maybe even have died in the disaster.
As horrible as that thought is, part of planning for disasters is planning for a worst-case scenario. You must plan for as many contingencies as possible, and hope that you haven't missed one that actually happens to your company.
Professional Service
This is where a professional service like ours can help. It is our job to help you create a plan which will encompass as many disasters as possible. From as small as a hard drive failing to your entire business being destroyed. We will also help you document how your business runs, from job duties to material and data flows, so that "Joan" will never be an issue at your company.
Documenting your business processes and job duties will also help you to streamline your business which will make your business more profitable by allowing you to reduce or eliminate the bottlenecks.
Security
As a part of our services, we offer secure off-site data backup. Our off-site data backup can supplement or replace your internal backup procedures, or even become the backup you never had, but needed. This low cost "data insurance" is a part of any good Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity plan.
Contact: Quality
System Consulting
Michael Duke
E-mail: mduke@qualitysystemconsulting.net
Phone: 574-250-7290
