Tuesday 12 August 2014

Companies Need Business Continuity Planning

By Frankline Bell


As a business owner or manager, you probably are consumed with the challenges of day to day operations and planning for future growth. But what happens if disaster strikes? Are you ready to the face the challenges that will occur if a fire destroys your office or an earthquake occurs in your vicinity? There are natural disasters and man-made disasters and it is wise to have a business continuity plan in place to meet the challenges of many situations.

Your business continuity plan can be just as important as any other type of business planning. In general, these plans contain five elements, some of which deal with what employees should do in variety of crises and some are created to handle information technology issues. One part of the plan will focus on employees and what they should do and where they should go in case of many different emergencies. This is called an occupant emergency plan, and this can help with evacuations or how to handle disasters and other types of emergencies.

Of course, you will want as little interruption to your business as possible no matter what type of crisis you face. Two parts of the continuity plan account for this, and they include a continuity of operations plan and a business resumption plan. These will ensure that you can continue dealing with client issues or at least get back in business as quickly as possible. Your employees and managers also will have an easier time dealing with a crisis if there is a plan in place. This provides a sense of security and lowers the stress level.

For so many businesses, most of the crucial information is stored on computers or perhaps in cloud-based software. When problems occur with your technology, you need a plan in place to deal with these issues. One part of the business continuity plan will be an incident management plan. This plan will provide employees with steps to take in the event of many different types of incidents, from a minor power outage or a problem with hardware or software or perhaps a company-wide technology problem. If the problem is extremely serious, then the fifth part of your continuity plan will be utilized and this is your disaster recovery plan.

These are plans that can be created by a team of managers, but it usually is a better idea to have an IT expert come in, study your business and then create a business continuity plan for you. This can be a cost-effective way to ensure that every aspect of your business is considered and every type of emergency has been addressed. IT consultants also are excellent resources in general, as they can create a solid IT plan for your business that helps you grow and change as technology improves over the coming years.

The experts at Always On IT, for instance, can create comprehensive plans that account for business continuity and disaster recovery in case of an emergency. They also provide managed IT support for all types of businesses, including offering IT consulting in Multnomah County, Washington County business continuity services, Portland IT consulting and much more. They also can help with comprehensive computer support and network support.




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