Any organisation is powered by one primary thing – the ability to stay open, and it is important to have a plan to do just that. This is even more true in the modern era, when IT services underpin so much of a business’s running, and they can potentially fail at a moment’s notice. Let’s go through a few basics of what your business continuity plan should include.
Prepare for a variety of scenarios
It is important to be flexible and versatile with continuity plans. Specifically, an organisation should be looking at any scenario that has a reasonable chance of impacting them. For example, power failures, minor natural disasters (such as flooding), data breaches, data loss, a virus getting into the network, etc. Ensuring that plans cater for any scenario is absolutely critical.
Be specific about response
When considering each response, a very specific set of steps should be planned out as a baseline. Naturally, context is important and quick thinking will be required for any problem that appears, but a simple set of steps should be in place to always be followed. For example, in the event of a power outage, a basic step might be to check the fuse-box. Or if a virus is found, calling the organisation’s managed service provider (such as Rapid IT). To put it another way, whilst flexibility should be present relating to actually solving a problem, having a basic response will ensure that the process of getting back up and running is sped up.
Ensure that there is constant review
If an incident is encountered and resolved, it is important to have a ‘debrief’, and ensure that the continuity plan is reviewed. This ensures that best practice is continuously developed, speeding up recovery in future instances. Ideally, this should be done in conjunction with your managed IT service provider, like Rapid IT. As experts in the field, Rapid IT have likely seen the issue that was encountered before, and hence would have a few ideas of how to be maximally efficient.
Summary
We have outlined some ideas that you should implement in your business continuity plan today, including being flexible, having specific responses, as well as ensuring continuous development. If you don’t have a business continuity plan of your own for your technology, you should develop one immediately. For assistance with this, or any other technology-related query you might have, get in touch with Rapid IT today on 1300 727 430.
