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Consultancy > Business Continuity

Not every disaster or catastrophe is self-inflicted. Outside influences such as fire, flood or a terrorist incident can cause major problems for businesses that don’t have a continuity plan.

Many insurance companies are now asking this question – do you have a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan; they are asking this because unless you have one then won’t cover certain insurable risks of your business. i.e. if you have a disaster they may not pay out for loss of income or business due to loss of IT systems, premises etc

Business Continuity planning goes hand in hand with many other areas of the business, with IT Disaster recovery only being one of them.

Whilst we can only advise you on the IT related side of planning, we have found a few useful guidelines for Business Continuity planning.

1. Assess your risks ie flood, theft, fire, loss of data, loss of power, loss of access to building
2. Ensure you are taking full daily backups using industry standard Backup software and are storing your media OFF site
3. Ensure that important paper documents, such as contracts and employee information are protected. Make copies and use fire resistant and water proof storage.
4. Keep a list of contact details for your staff, customers and suppliers off-site so that you can contact them if you do not have access to your usual premises. Review regularly.
5. Be clear about what your insurances cover and what they don’t. Keep copies of the relevant policies off-site so that you know immediately what to do in event of an incident
6. Have an emergency pack which will include your business recovery plan, key telephone numbers, as well as stationery etc.
7. Plan for a temporary base – you may not be able to operate out of your existing premises for weeks or even months. Think about clients or suppliers premises for key personnel, you may be able to ‘piggy-back’ on their internet and phone systems
8. Make an inventory of equipment, materials, products and any other assets to give you an overview of the business. This will make it easier to work out losses and identify gaps in core resources after an incident.
9. Carry out a test on a regular basis.
10. Consider housing your server(s) in a secure offsite Data Centre now. By doing this you’ll still have access to all your data and emails within hours. This is a very affordable solution.

Purity can help prepare for the worst by planning for the best possible response to an unforeseen problem.