Protect your organisation from severe financial loss and threats to its survival in the event of a disaster.
If your business premises were damaged or destroyed by fire, flood, or other catastrophe – natural or man-made – would you be able to continue operating? Most businesses today depend heavily on technology and automated systems, whose disruption for even a few days could cause irreparable harm. Insurance alone is not enough: it may not compensate for the incalculable loss of business during the interruption, or the business that never returns.
Fortunately, there is a solution – but it involves more than just off-site storage or backup processing. You need to draw up, document and test a disaster recovery plan: a comprehensive statement of consistent actions to be taken before, during and after a disaster to ensure the continuity of operations and availability of critical resources.
Benefits of a disaster recovery plan
A good disaster recovery plan will protect your organisation if all or part of its operations and/or computer services are rendered unusable. It will:
- minimise the disruption of operations
- ensure some level of organisational stability
- enable an orderly recovery
- provide a sense of security
- minimise the risk of delays
- guarantee the reliability of standby systems
- provide a standard for testing the plan
- minimise decision making during a disaster.
The disaster recovery planning process
TCii has helped many clients to safeguard their businesses by formulating an effective disaster recovery plan – a process that includes:
- obtaining the commitment and support of top management
- establishing a planning committee to oversee the development and implementation of the plan and define the scope of the plan
- performing a risk analysis and business impact analysis that includes a range of possible disasters
- evaluating the critical needs of each department in areas such as:
- functional operations
- key personnel
- information
- processing systems
- service
- documentation
- vital records
- policies and procedures
- researching and evaluating practical alternatives for all aspects of the organisation, including:
- facilities
- hardware
- software
- communications
- data files
- customer services
- user operations
- management information systems (MIS)
- end-user systems
- preparing written agreements for the chosen recovery alternatives
- compiling materials and documentation for data gathering
- outlining the contents of the proposed disaster recovery plan for review and approval by top management
- writing the plan, using the approved outline as an index
- developing criteria and procedures for testing the plan regularly
- conducting a structured walk-through test and updating the plan to correct any problems that the test reveals
- getting final approval for the written plan from top management.
Next steps to a reliable disaster recovery plan
To learn more about protecting your business from financial ruin if disaster strikes, please email us or call us on 020 7099 2621.
