Archive for the ‘Business Continuity’ Category

Start with the basics.

DR/BC planning in small and mid sized businesses (SMB) always starts with the basics.  These are the things that every business should do, regardless of their size, mission, regulatory compliance, or business strategy.  These are the easy things that don’t require gobs of money or consultants to tell you how to protect your business from a debilitating interruption.  When the basics are done well, any business can recover from any unexpected event and / or situation.  The variable is how long and how much effort it will take to recover.  This simple concept is lost on many who pursue BC/DR plans, they focus on the “how long” before they focus on the “if”.  The basics provide the “if”. 

Here are the basics:

Sound Design: A sound design consists of planning for a long lifecycle, selecting the proper technology balancing needs, training and supportability, keeping the setup as close to industry best practices as the business needs allow, and keeping it simple.

 Utilize and test security tools:  Security issues are the most common of technology business interruptions.  Use industry best firewalls, monitoring, backup, and malware tools, follow industry best practices, and test regularly.

 Document it:  Trying to figure out how a broken system was setup wastes valuable time in a technology failure.  Having thorough system documentation in place will allow for better long term planning, faster troubleshooting, and provide a roadmap for recovery in the event of an event.

 Build it to last:  Implementation is the variable that will determine the reliability and predictability of a well designed system.  A well planned and executed implementation will usually run better and longer than a haphazard one.  Good habits, industry best practices, attention to detail, fit and finish are some of the traits that make for a solid implementation.

 Support it well:  If it were a car this would mean keeping the tires properly inflated and rotated, changing the oil, keeping it clean, following the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule, watching the gauges and indicator lights, staying aware of how the car performs through your senses.  Technology is no different; routine maintenance (light and heavy), monitoring, and awareness keep the well designed and implemented system running well through lifecycle.

 If the basics are done well, the organization should have a system that is less susceptible to disruption and have the ability to recover in case that they do.  These steps are generally within reach of any organization.

 The next logical question is how long does it take and this is where the conversation starts to get complicated and people start to get lost in the weeds.  Once the basics are in place, this may be the point to call in the outsiders to assist.

Take our Disaster-Preparedness Survey.

Would your business survive a fire or flood?

Would your business be able to recover quickly enough to avoid becoming a statistic?

Take our Survey to find out!

Critical business processes need to be recovered quickly if there is any hope of your organization’s survival after a disaster.  Your chances of recovering critical business processes quickly enough to save your organization may hinge on your level of preparedness, as outlined in your business continuity plan (BCP).

PC Network Services can help you prepare a business continuity plan that will significantly improve your response to a disaster!

Why don’t you have a business continuity plan (BCP) today?

Is it too hard?

Too expensive?

Too busy with other things?

A common thread we have heard is…You don’t have time to do it yourself – and you can’t afford a Business Continuity Consultant.

That was our problem too, so we have come up with a process that delivers a result close to what the consultant would deliver at a price closer to the cost of do-it-yourself.

The process we use to deliver expensive consultant results at a cost closer to do-it-yourself  is called   “Survivor or Statistic”.

 

Take our Survey to find out if your company would qualify as a “Survivor” or a “Statistic”

 

 

 

 

Should you implement a business continuity/disaster recovery plan in 2010?

PCNS implemented one internally in 2009.
Here are our personal observations as a consumer of the “Survivor or Statistic” program:

Forget for a moment the concept of recovering from a business disruption.  Contingency planning is only a by-product of this process.   It made us a better organization.  It made me feel better about our company.  Our foundation is better.

–Our vendor management information is now centralized

–Our workplace is now safer

–We are now a better employer and a better vendor to our clients

–I found out that some things I assumed were being done were not being done. 

I could have done these things on my own, but realistically, I never would have.   As a business owner, with employees and customers depending on me, the tool we are using (Survivor or Statistic) makes me behave more like I should behave.   Mellon Bank and other huge organizations know how to behave and spend lots of money putting together their plan.  That would be an exercise in futility here…but we can do the easy stuff.   We have now done the easy stuff, thanks to the Survivor or Statistic process.

Finding #3 – Your customers think this is important!

Two in five (42 percent) SMB customers have actually switched vendors in the past because they felt their vendor’s computers or technology systems were unreliable.

This concern is well founded, as 28 percent of the customers surveyed have seen one or more of their SMB vendors shut down due to computer failure.

 

SMBs may be optimistic about their disaster preparedness, but the study shows that optimism is misplaced.

First, most SMBs (76 percent) report they live in a region that is susceptible to natural disasters (such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes).

Furthermore, SMBs report they frequently experience outages or downtime. The average SMB experienced three outages within the past 12 months, with the leading causes being virus or hacker attacks, power outages or natural disasters.

 

 

When it comes to disaster preparedness, small- and mid-sized businesses are quite confident. Most (82 percent) report they are somewhat/very satisfied with their disaster recovery (DR) plan. Further, most (84 percent) report their computer and technology systems are somewhat/very protected.

Take our survey to find out if your company is adequately prepared.

Why can’t we take business continuity plans seriously?

Here’s a simplified job description for a Business Continuity Manager from blogger Nathaniel Forbes:

1. Get lukewarm to tepid management support
2. Struggle for modest funding in good times, grovel for derisory funding in bad times
3. Perform a risk assessment (optional in many companies)
4. Lead reluctant business units through a business impact analysis (BIA)
5. Develop continuity strategies that don’t cost anything to implement
6. Write plans in a template, removing any opportunity for creativity
7. Set up (and maintain) a recovery site
8. Exercise, often without any element of surprise
9. Repeat endlessly.

Sounds like a lot of companies don’t take their disaster-preparedness very seriously!

Unfortunately, for many SMB’s, this scenario might actually be an improvement!