Technology Planning for Disasters Big and Small

Understanding the Threats

Taking Action Through Planning

• Begin planning now. Develop and document a well-structured and easily understood plan that will help your company recover from a technology disaster as quickly and effectively as possible. Plan to protect your critical assets and workers in each disaster scenario. Also, ask tough questions, such as how many hours you can be down before you start losing customers.
• Identify critical assets. Which items are absolutely necessary (e.g., data, property, equipment) to access on a day-to-day basis in order to stay in business? This list will look different for every business. Be sure to account for elements like important IT systems, data, applications, critical personnel and processes.
• Make a plan for workers. You should have an idea of what every type of employee should do in any kind of disaster. Where do they go? What do they do? How do you keep them safe? How do you keep them working? Additionally, is your business set up in a way that enables your employees to work from home—and are you leveraging cloud technologies where possible?
• Develop a communications plan. Post-disaster communication is one of the most common issues that companies face. Once you know where everyone will go, you’ll need a way for them to stay in touch. Communication methods to use during disasters include mass notification / texting, voicemails, emails, emergency information lines, and call trees.
• Account for systems and data. Systems and data can create disasters of their own making, so make sure these systems are tested often. Also, make sure that any service-related issues that would keep a particular system from functioning properly are rectified as a first priority. Some important steps along these lines include:
  • Ensuring you have both local and off-site data backups.
  • Testing the process of restoring files every quarter.
  • Utilizing cloud backups, which are the most effective off-site backup strategy, because they are automated and have less human interaction. Cloud solutions have also recently come down in price, so they’re more affordable than ever.
  • Consider using Software as a Service (SaaS) applications (e.g., Office 365 for Microsoft Office Suite and email) whenever possible.
• Find an alternative location. If your office or facility has been affected by a disaster, you need a place for your “critical people” to continue business operations. This can be a particular challenge for small businesses. However, some options do exist:
  • Rent a small space large enough for your critical employees.
  • Rent a flexible workspace on an hourly, daily or even yearly basis.
  • Utilize ShareDesk, an on-demand workspace.
  • Work from home if possible (assuming your technology supports it).
• Appoint leadership. You’ll need someone to take control and execute the plan. Your leaders need to know the disaster recovery plan and be capable of testing it. They must be ready and able to report back inefficiencies and implement changes—and above all, be capable of taking decisive action.
• Finally, test the plan. You’ve identified what the critical assets are, who the critical employees are, and where your team will redeploy. Now it’s time to put all of it to the test.

• Specific actions that employees should take
• Communication at all points throughout the organization—and beyond it as well (i.e., to customers, stakeholders and possibly the public at large)
• Plans to protect your key systems and data
• A list of alternate locations from which your employees can work
• Identification of emergency leaders

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