Is Your Company Prepared for a Disaster?

According to a recent study, only 13% of small businesses consider themselves vulnerable to a data-loss disaster. In reality, 20% of small businesses will have an accident once every five years. No business is impenetrable. Every organization needs a disaster recovery plan.

It's essential for you to be hopeful about your business' success, but it can be detrimental to your company to be overly confident in its ability to make a superstar disaster comeback. While 65% of small business owners think they would lose less than $500 in the event of a disaster, the reality is that 40% of affected small businesses never open their doors again.

"The best defense is a good offense." This old adage is relevant to our conversation here; the best way to recover from a threatening disaster is to prepare your business beforehand. Your disaster recovery plan needs to address the following three questions.

What's the Game Plan?
A highly effective disaster recovery plan is written down and easily accessible. This plan should include step-by-step instructions about how to react in the event of an accident, along with contact information of company employees, important clients, insurance companies, and other important people. Make sure you have multiple copies of this plan, and that some of them are located offsite in case the disaster takes out your facility. Lastly, make sure this plan is regularly tested and kept up to date.

Where Will We Go?
Statistically, small businesses that are out of operation for just ten days will not last another year in business. If a disaster disables your office space, you'll need to make sure you have a backup facility available. Without a backup location, your operations will cease until your building gets back up and running, which will take longer than you can afford. After you've scoped out an emergency location, make sure that it is equipped (or can be quickly) with electricity, Internet connectivity, cell phone reception, furniture, and technology. Also, make sure your IT provider is informed and able to assist you in a quick emergency startup. There's no need to be fancy here. An ad hoc business run with old company computers and coffee tables in the old abandoned shoe factory is better than not operating your business at all. Don't wait until a disaster strikes to find a backup location.

What Will Happen to Our Data?
With good insurance, it's relatively simple to replace facilities, furniture, and equipment in the event of a disaster. However, it is nearly impossible to recover data that's lost in an accident if it is not backed up beforehand. Data loss is one of the greatest reasons why small businesses are forced to close their doors after a disaster, because they are unable to operate without their imperative documents and information. Trying to re-gather lost data by your own memory is too expensive and time-consuming, making it an unrealistic possibility. It's essential for your business to have a data recovery solution in place.

Computerware specializes in Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solutions that assist your company's business continuity plan. With a BDR solution, we'll backup your data to a secure offsite location without you ever having to spend time on the process. Our BDR solution will recover your data and immediately forward it all to your alternative workstations in the event of a disaster. Don't wait for a disaster to strike before you come up with a plan. Call Computerware at (703) 821-8200 today, and let us help you integrate a BDR solution as part of your business continuity plan.