To support the series of Business Continuity talks that Stack Managing Director Steve Cobham is giving in the UK throughout September and October, our next two blogs focus on this topic.
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” - Warren Buffett
What could possibly go wrong?
Today, information is at the heart of almost every part of every organisation and business. Not only is it mission-critical to keep running, how it’s handled and protected is also fundamental to comply with ever-increasing regulatory demands.
Unfortunately it is not uncommon for businesses to experience ‘disasters’ that take down their data. Floods, fire, power outages, human error, a disgruntled employee with a grudge, cyberattacks and viruses – all of these factors are very real possibilities that all organisations face and all organisations should plan for.
Do you rely solely on insurance to bail yourself out should your business be hit by a disaster? Maybe you have only thought as far as an evacuation plan for your staff in the event if a physical threat to property? But who is coming to the rescue of your data? Do you have a business continuity plan?
If so, is it sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust? If it’s stored electronically on your server, have you got a hard copy off-site somewhere as you won’t be able to access it if your systems go down?
A business continuity and disaster recovery plan safeguard and protect you from losing your data.
Before you read further, please take a few minutes to ask yourself these questions:
A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a loosely defined set of proactive planning, preparation and other associated activities to avoid and mitigate risks associated with a disruption of operations in all areas of business. There are three key areas:
1. Resilience: Allows critical business functions to continue despite most types of disruptions by having relevant supporting or secondary/redundant infrastructure available.
2. Recovery: Processes and arrangements put in place to ensure that restoration or recovery is possible for failed resilience measures. These could also be used for less critical systems and tape backups are an example.
3. Contingency: Ensuring a readiness and the resource capacity to deal with major disruptive or disaster type events that were both planned for and unforeseen. This is the last resort if the first two processes have failed for any reason
A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a set of reactive procedures and policies primarily focused on the recovery of IT systems, particularly those that support business functions. Disaster Recovery is one of the many subsets of Business Continuity. Its detail would include:
Why should I have a BCP and a DRP?
You’ve worked hard to build up your business and its survival is in your hands. You may be a manager tasked with protecting your company’s assets against any eventuality. Whatever type of business you have, your responsibilities, no doubt, go beyond your own financial position. You have staff to look after – livelihoods in your hands. Suppliers with contracts you must honour. You might have customers relying on you to provide a crucial service. And these days, customers expect companies to do ‘business as usual’ – under all circumstances.
Customers are more demanding than ever. They entrust you with their loyalty, their private data and their money – it’s your responsibility to keep things going, even when disaster strikes.
So why should you have a plan? Statistics show that businesses are far more likely to survive a disaster if they have thought about it in advance, and planned accordingly.
Here are a few more reasons to consider:
Protect your future and profitability: Any incident, no matter how small, is capable of impacting on your business and affecting profitability.
Guard your reputation: The old adage of “a happy customer tells 1 person, an unhappy one 10 people” rings truer than ever. Customers might be sympathetic to your disaster in certain circumstances but if you are not able to resume operations quickly it could fast become a PR disaster. They expect you to be prepared enough to survive.
Retain customer trust: Your customers rely on you to provide their favourite products or a crucial service. They trust you to keep their private data safe. Customer trust is earned over many years but can be broken in an instant if you don’t respond correctly in the time of a crisis.
Extra insurance: It’s important to check what is and isn’t covered under your business insurance as that alone is not enough to safeguard your business against loss of customers and market share, or the loss of time if, for example, you were developing a new product.
Adds value: Banks, investors, insurers and suppliers take businesses with BCPs more seriously. Be sure to mention the fact that you have a BCP when applying for a loan or dealing with a new client. Efficient communication, a reliable staff and the confidence of the clients that they will be taken care of makes your Firm very valuable and a very attractive investment at the same time.
Builds employee confidence: A place of work is a home away from home for many employees and they expect your business to do everything in its power to protect their safety and job security. You will also need them more than ever to reassure your customers.
To underline the above, Aberdeen Group research has recently found that best-in-class companies applying the right technology recover 6.5 times faster and will likely lose 40 times less money as a result of disruptions.
In my next blog I will focus on the 4 steps to creating a business continuity plan.
Written by: Steve Cobham, Managing Director, Stack Group
A highly respected professional within the IT Services industry, Steve is a Chartered Engineer with over 20 years’ experience of advising on and building robust IT solutions for businesses across the UK.
About Stack Group
The Stack Group deliver solutions and support in the areas of IT Management and Cloud services, Telecoms, Infrastructure and Networks. If you would like any help and advice regarding any of our solutions please do not hesitate to get in touch and one of our experts will assist you.
Phone: +44 (0) 151 521 2202
Email: [email protected]
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” - Warren Buffett
What could possibly go wrong?
Today, information is at the heart of almost every part of every organisation and business. Not only is it mission-critical to keep running, how it’s handled and protected is also fundamental to comply with ever-increasing regulatory demands.
Unfortunately it is not uncommon for businesses to experience ‘disasters’ that take down their data. Floods, fire, power outages, human error, a disgruntled employee with a grudge, cyberattacks and viruses – all of these factors are very real possibilities that all organisations face and all organisations should plan for.
Do you rely solely on insurance to bail yourself out should your business be hit by a disaster? Maybe you have only thought as far as an evacuation plan for your staff in the event if a physical threat to property? But who is coming to the rescue of your data? Do you have a business continuity plan?
If so, is it sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust? If it’s stored electronically on your server, have you got a hard copy off-site somewhere as you won’t be able to access it if your systems go down?
A business continuity and disaster recovery plan safeguard and protect you from losing your data.
Before you read further, please take a few minutes to ask yourself these questions:
- What would you do today if you went back to your office to find that you could not access any data?
- What could you no longer do – invoicing, online banking, pay salaries, access project and client files, access contact details of clients and suppliers that you store electronically?
- Could you continue to trade if you did not have access to any of that data?
- How long would it take you to physically re-input that data to get back to the point before you lost it? How much would that cost?
A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a loosely defined set of proactive planning, preparation and other associated activities to avoid and mitigate risks associated with a disruption of operations in all areas of business. There are three key areas:
1. Resilience: Allows critical business functions to continue despite most types of disruptions by having relevant supporting or secondary/redundant infrastructure available.
2. Recovery: Processes and arrangements put in place to ensure that restoration or recovery is possible for failed resilience measures. These could also be used for less critical systems and tape backups are an example.
3. Contingency: Ensuring a readiness and the resource capacity to deal with major disruptive or disaster type events that were both planned for and unforeseen. This is the last resort if the first two processes have failed for any reason
A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a set of reactive procedures and policies primarily focused on the recovery of IT systems, particularly those that support business functions. Disaster Recovery is one of the many subsets of Business Continuity. Its detail would include:
- Safety of critical staff members, and restoration of locations, and operational procedures after a disaster.
- Recovery strategies for IT systems, applications and data. This includes networks, servers, desktops, laptops, wireless devices, and data connectivity.
Why should I have a BCP and a DRP?
You’ve worked hard to build up your business and its survival is in your hands. You may be a manager tasked with protecting your company’s assets against any eventuality. Whatever type of business you have, your responsibilities, no doubt, go beyond your own financial position. You have staff to look after – livelihoods in your hands. Suppliers with contracts you must honour. You might have customers relying on you to provide a crucial service. And these days, customers expect companies to do ‘business as usual’ – under all circumstances.
Customers are more demanding than ever. They entrust you with their loyalty, their private data and their money – it’s your responsibility to keep things going, even when disaster strikes.
So why should you have a plan? Statistics show that businesses are far more likely to survive a disaster if they have thought about it in advance, and planned accordingly.
Here are a few more reasons to consider:
Protect your future and profitability: Any incident, no matter how small, is capable of impacting on your business and affecting profitability.
Guard your reputation: The old adage of “a happy customer tells 1 person, an unhappy one 10 people” rings truer than ever. Customers might be sympathetic to your disaster in certain circumstances but if you are not able to resume operations quickly it could fast become a PR disaster. They expect you to be prepared enough to survive.
Retain customer trust: Your customers rely on you to provide their favourite products or a crucial service. They trust you to keep their private data safe. Customer trust is earned over many years but can be broken in an instant if you don’t respond correctly in the time of a crisis.
Extra insurance: It’s important to check what is and isn’t covered under your business insurance as that alone is not enough to safeguard your business against loss of customers and market share, or the loss of time if, for example, you were developing a new product.
Adds value: Banks, investors, insurers and suppliers take businesses with BCPs more seriously. Be sure to mention the fact that you have a BCP when applying for a loan or dealing with a new client. Efficient communication, a reliable staff and the confidence of the clients that they will be taken care of makes your Firm very valuable and a very attractive investment at the same time.
Builds employee confidence: A place of work is a home away from home for many employees and they expect your business to do everything in its power to protect their safety and job security. You will also need them more than ever to reassure your customers.
To underline the above, Aberdeen Group research has recently found that best-in-class companies applying the right technology recover 6.5 times faster and will likely lose 40 times less money as a result of disruptions.
In my next blog I will focus on the 4 steps to creating a business continuity plan.
Written by: Steve Cobham, Managing Director, Stack Group
A highly respected professional within the IT Services industry, Steve is a Chartered Engineer with over 20 years’ experience of advising on and building robust IT solutions for businesses across the UK.
About Stack Group
The Stack Group deliver solutions and support in the areas of IT Management and Cloud services, Telecoms, Infrastructure and Networks. If you would like any help and advice regarding any of our solutions please do not hesitate to get in touch and one of our experts will assist you.
Phone: +44 (0) 151 521 2202
Email: [email protected]