Disaster Recovery Plan Critical for Success Accpac
Posted by Glen Mund on Thu, Nov 01, 2007 @ 04:32 PM
by Alan Salmon
The Bottom Line September 2007
Small & large companies & public accounting firms invest a huge amount of time & money building their businesses. If their operations were interrupted for an extended period, could they recover? How would they communicate with their customers & suppliers? Where are their records? Where would their employees work? Can they sustain their cash flow?
Cash flow is not the only concern when planning for business continuity. The business simply failed to develop, test & maintain a business continuity plan. The owners did not have a strategy for dealing with & surviving a disaster of any magnitude.
There was no communication plan, no incident team, no alternate sites for production, business office functions, sales, or even a process for contacting their clients & vendors, let alone the media.
A business disaster is not a tornado, fire, flood, etc. These are the causes. A business disaster is that point in time after the cause, when a business is not able to provide customers & users with the minimum level of service they both need & expect.
Business continuity planning (BCP), also referred to as disaster recovery or contingency planning, is a process to identify & risk rate key business processes & functions, prioritize the importance of those processes, & develop plans to continue those processes in the event of a disaster.
This includes not only protecting the company's employees, assets & reputation, but its customers & vendors as well. It is not just recovery of computer systems.
Business continuity planning must be addressed because:
- 43% of businesses suffering a disaster never recover sufficiently to resume business. Of those that do reopen, only 29% are still operating two years later.
- 93% of businesses that lose their IT area for more than nine days file for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster.
- 50% of businesses that find themselves without their data for more than nine days file for bankruptcy immediatly.
Business survival is an organization's own responsibility. Planning for reasonably foreseeable business interuptions & taking appropriate, cost-justifiable actions is nothing more than good business practice. In fact, creating & maintaining a basic business continuity plan is no less prudent than having insurance & smoke alarms. Reasonable planning may also reduce the likelihood of legal actions by employees, customers, stockholders, or even the government.
The BCP process does not need to be complex, or drawn out. It should be viewed as partof an ongoing, overall risk management program. The key is strong visible commitment from management. It requires a realistic appraisal of the company operations, the development of appropriate strategies, creating & assembling teams with specific responsibilites & providing a clear chain of command & authority.
Identifying essential recovery items for offsite sotrage, documenting the plan, exercising or testing the plan, and conducting regular reviews of it go a long way toward ensuring a plan's success (there are no guarantees), making the business safer.
Specific risks to company operations must be identified. These include employees, materials, equipment, special skills, communications, location & reputation. Consider the following:
- What are the vulnerabilities or weak links that could interrupt operations?
- What can be done to reduce the risk, mitigate, vulnerabilities?
- Are key activities centralized or distributed?
- Where & how are vital records & information stored & backed up?
- How will key people responsible for immediatly responding to an event communicate, and where will they meet?
- How will employees, customers, vendors, and the media be informed of the problem & what the company is doing to address the situation?
There are a variety of resources, consultants, organizations & tools available to help companies develop & maintain business continuity plans.
Will your business survive an unexpected interruption? You can improve the chances by developing, implementing & maintaining a basic business continuity plan. It needn't be expensive or complicated, but it does require you to make a choice, a commitment & take action.
Ensuring your business survives a disaster requires a practical, documented, practiced & current business continuity plan. Receiving insurance settlements alone will not ensure a business' survival after a disaster.
Accpac