How long would you be unable to work if your network went down? Would you be able to recover critical client information while maintaining security? If you don’t have a plan for when disaster strikes, your business is on the edge of disaster! Business continuity is an overarching term that covers all ways your business can survive technological failures, and investing in this is critical to your success.
To keep your business safe and successful, you will need an IT partner who can secure, maintain, and protect your company throughout the worst – this is what InnoTek can do for you! We have provided Northeastern PA with longer-lived and more secure businesses, including in the Bloomsburg, Pottsville, Reading, and Scranton areas.
If your company is located within our service area, then you’re in luck! Call us today, and we’ll get you started with our cutting-edge services to minimize business disruption in the event of a disaster.
What Is Business Continuity, and Why Should You Care?
Business continuity is an umbrella term that covers all of the strategies, tools, and technologies that allow you to continue working in the event of a disaster. Whether that’s cyber attacks, natural disasters, or global disruption of supply chains, your business needs to be flexible and ready to bounce back. This concept is an essential facet of modern business structures and needs to be given clarity so that you can leverage it. Our advice is that business continuity can be found at nearly every level of your company structure and will include the following:
Clear and Comprehensive Guidelines
Before you start planning your disaster response, you should define your operations and what data you need to follow through on them. Then, you can provide guidelines on prioritizing your responses and the order of recovery processes. This should include contact information for critical response personnel, how to respond to common incidents, and standard operating procedures.
Defined Levels of Response
You don’t swat flies with a baseball bat and shouldn’t approach a mild slip-up with the same vigor as a complete shut-down. Define how many hands need to be on deck for each general degree of threat – from network interruption to in-progress cyberattacks. How much energy should be dedicated to the problem? Panicking is inefficient, and too many hands can start to lose grip on the situation.
Collaboration and Transparency
Business continuity should include everyone in your organization, from executives to employees. While the IT department is likely the key player in a collaborative effort, having everybody on board and the same page will ensure that essential information is disseminated appropriately when problems arise. Facilitating interdepartmental collaboration is a significant first step.
These primary structural goals should be the foundation of your business continuity planning and guide your process as you plan ahead and prepare your business for success.
How to Ensure Business Continuity
Modern businesses have many options as they plan their business continuity plans. Organizations that don’t leverage the technology available to them will quickly fall behind, which is why we take care to make sure the most appropriate and high-quality tools are available for you to choose from, such as:
- Backup Tools and Services: Backups are one of your most essential safety measures. These tools save your mission-critical data, so you don’t lose it in the disaster. This type of business continuity strategy protects you from common data corruption and more dangerous system failures and providing paper trails for your workday.
- Disaster Recovery: Having disaster recovery options available can provide your systems with redundancy and your workers with alternative options when their usual workflows fail.
- Virtualization: A digital workspace, rather than a physical one, can provide your workforce with greater mobility and flexibility throughout their workdays.
- Cold Site: A cold site is a secondary location with the minimum infrastructure for critical business functions. This option is a slight investment but can guarantee some safety in the case of natural disasters or damage to your office.
- Hot Site: A hot site, on the other hand, is a second copy of everything your business currently has to work with. This redundancy provides a second data center and ensures minimal downtime, but it is more expensive.
Not every business needs every tool, but having at least a few of these business continuity services on hand will help your company survive the worst of your business’s threats and incidents.
Come to InnoTek to Stay Protected and Working Smoothly!
Your business continuity plan must be structured around your company’s goals and structure. When you work within this structure, having the perspective needed to ensure you are in an excellent position to move forward confidently can be challenging. InnoTek’s business continuity services work alongside your IT team to produce a complete and comprehensive approach to your disaster recovery plan and future-proofing.
Come to us for more information and an in-depth exploration of your business continuity planning! We are here for your benefit and are excited to get started!
