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business builder disaster planning
by Jim Masterson
IF YOU WERE to ask a dozen CEOs for their definitions of business continuity, you’d very likely get a dozen different answers. That’s not to say that the practice of business continuity is misunderstood — just not well understood in the small- to midsized business world.
It is pretty safe to say that most of us don’t have the resources (time, human or financial) to allocate to intense business process scrutiny, development of detailed “what-if” scenarios and implementation of anything that takes focus away from our core business.
Despite the incredible resource drought that most companies are facing, it is important to realize that risks that could affect the ability to do business are not reserved for the Fortune 500 set alone.
What is a disaster?
One of the common misconceptions is the definition of a disaster. Replace the word disaster with disruption. Anything that has the possibility of interrupting your normal critical business processes would be considered a disruption.
So your plan has to consider anything, large or small, that could take processes down, from a power spike or server crash to a F5 tornado or terrorist attack.
Small disruptions based on hardware failure and human error are much more likely than broad-scale natural disasters, and fortunately these types of disruptions are most easily mitigated through proper control and preparation.
Risk mitigation aligns the possibilities and probabilities of risk with the risk tolerance of the organization and the costs associated with mitigating the risks.
Action is only necessary for risks that rise above the tolerance threshold, and that have associated costs that are reasonable given the probability of the risk.
What’s an owner to do?
The real opportunity for small-business owners is to find a way to mitigate some common business risks and at the same time provide the company with some visible operational benefits. There are three information technology-based initiatives that would provide both risk mitigation and offer the company additional business advantages.
Hands down, the most critical aspect of any business is the communication between the company and its clients, prospects, suppliers and vendors. Without a constant stream of communication, business slows to a crawl.
To illustrate this point, consider how your business would react today if the lifelines to your phone and e-mail were suddenly severed.
So consider ways to minimize your risk. For example, fully hosted e-mail services are not compromised by onsite disruptions and are also accessible over any Web connection or wirelessly through a mobile device.
During a business interruption, employees can utilize alternative means to receive e-mail. On a daily basis, employees can access their mail, calendar and tasks remotely.
Take the same look at your phone service. In the event of a long-term disruption, how long would it take for traditional phone lines to be back up? Consider alternatives, such as a Voice over IP service.
But don’t look at only what would happen after a disruption. Could a different system also help your employees day-to-day, for example by allowing them to receive important calls while traveling?
Next, analyze process continuity. It is important to analyze your business flow and determine which processes are critical. Although it can be different in every situation, most businesses regard the process between sales and accounting to be the most critical.
To prevent a disruption, applications involved in these processes must be available at all times. This can be done in several ways.
You could purchase a redundant server to be used in case of a failure. This can be kept as a cold server (configured for use but not necessarily up to date, turned off until needed), warm server (configured and periodically updated, turned off until needed) or a hot server (running and ready to go at any time).
Or consider having the application hosted through an outside service. Hosting options vary greatly based on your performance and accessibility needs, but most protect the company from technology obsolescence and offer almost unlimited scalability.
Save that data
One of the most common disruptions in business is a failure that causes a loss of data. Every company has data that falls into one of several categories: mission-critical, important, operational and long-term archive. The backup strategy will likely be different based on the importance and availability needs of the data.
Long-term data can be stored on archive disk backup or tape, while the mission-critical data should have some sort of offsite component to ensure that it’s safe and available.
Again, consider more than data recovery after a disruption. Offsite backup not only allows a temporary fix while the primary data is being restored, but it also frees up IT resources from the mundane task of organizing backup files.
[contact] Jim Masterson is chairman and CEO of LightEdge Solutions, which provides voice, data and information technology services, with offices in Minneapolis and Des Moines: 877.771.3343; jm*********@*******ge.com; www.lightedge.com
