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Is Your Small Business Ready for a Potential Disaster?

Tristan Anwyn

November 23, 2015

Are you prepared for a disaster in your small business?

Disaster recovery planning is one of those jobs that people often mean to get around to, but never do. In fact, disaster recovery planning could be the difference between whether your business gets back on its feet or not, should disaster strike.

Here's why disaster recovery matters - and what you can do about it….

Why Do You Need a Disaster Recovery Plan?

Disasters come in all shapes and sizes.

For example:

• A natural disaster such as a flood or tornado;
• A power outage;
• A building fire or other building damage;
• A server crash or data loss;
• A hacking incident or compromised data.

Each disaster has its own unique potential for disrupting your business.

Whether you are facing the loss of premises, the loss of data, or simply an interruption in your business, being prepared will help you recover. 

The article "5 Tips for Developing a Disaster Recovery Plan" says that three out of four businesses are not prepared for a significant emergency.

Be one of the small businesses who know what to do in an emergency by drawing up a disaster recovery plan.

Building the Framework of Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Building a strong framework for your disaster recovery plan takes time and effort, which are well worth spending to help secure the future of your business. Building a framework can be broken down into three simple steps.

First, look at every aspect of your business. Ask yourself what your business needs to run smoothly.

For example, what do you need in terms of:

• Premises (including utilities such as light and heat);
• Computers or other tech;
• Supplies and components;
• Staff;
• Data.

Second, look at all the potential things that could go wrong.

You need to know what could affect your business, and how. For every potential disaster, what would the impact on your business be?

Third, think about what you would need to get your business up and running again should any of these disasters come to pass.

For example, if you had a fire in your building, how would you go about finding new premises quickly? If your servers went down, what steps would you take to restore them?

From this information you can build a comprehensive backup plan for use in emergencies.

Assigning Responsibility

When you put together your plan, don't forget to assign responsibility.

Ask yourself:

• In the event of a specific disaster, who is responsible for getting things back on track? 
• Who should staff members turn to for help? 
• Who is responsible for making sure you have everything in place for dealing with a disaster?

A clear idea of responsibility will prevent your disaster recovery getting left to someone else. Know what needs doing, and know who is going to do it.

Keeping Your Contacts and Data Safe

Loss of data can be one of the most devastating effects of a disaster.

That's why it's important that your disaster recovery plan includes keeping safe copies of all your contacts and data.

You'll want to have physical copies of all your business contacts, contracts, important serial numbers for software, help desk numbers, and anything else you'll need to put things back together if the worst happens. Consider keeping these copies off-site in a secure location.

When disaster strikes, it's already too late - your team will be in crisis trying to get things fixed.

A good disaster recovery plan will give you and your team a roadmap for getting your small business back on track as quickly as possible.

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