When business technology becomes a competitive asset rather than a burdensome liability, it has also become worthy of protection. Show respect for the information by planning security to protect it from the potential disasters that could destroy it. Disaster recovery is the acknowledgement of possible disasters and the advance planning to continue business as usual.

Protect Proprietary Data

The company executive who plans for disaster is on the road to disaster recovery before anything happens. Brainstorming with others is helpful during the first steps of planning to protect company information, but it is important to think “in hindsight” instead of foresight. The items on our short list of disasters, lying in wait to cripple any company not ready with a coping strategy, include:

• Extreme weather conditions

• Earthquakes or volcanic eruptions

• Blizzards

• High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse

• Terrorist attack

• Civil unrest/riots

Company short lists should address a minimum of five items from that list and outline a plan for recovery after a disaster as well as business continuity.

Planning Business Continuity

Your business is planning to fail if there is no plan in place for recovery. It does not need to be this way.

Although a planning session might not be convenient at this moment, the ability to do business after a real disaster is an achievement worth noting. Perhaps it might be necessary to determine if company data requires a second home … a collocation in a safer place. There will be many questions before a clear path presents itself.

• Is the data in storage more important than the physical business?

• Does the physical business need an alternate location to remain viable?

• Should you position your staff to be able to work at home rather than an office?

• Who will have password access to proprietary company information?

The answers to those questions will help to decide the steps necessary to form a prudent disaster recovery plan.

Deliver Your IT Concerns

At this point, it would be helpful to talk to experts whose sole reason for being is to help protect small-to-medium size businesses. You need to select the one expert who becomes your virtual IT department. Contact us for more details about the development of an appropriate disaster recovery plan, computer support, software, updates and much, much more.

You will know that we are doing our job when staff and management begin to interact with us as a natural part of the core team. Package your IT issues, deliver them to us and return to business as usual knowing your enterprise is in good hands. There is nothing to worry about now because we have your back.