The Only Thing Harder Than Planning For An Emergency Is Explaining Why You Didn’t!
Over the last few months we’ve been working hard to make Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity more cost effective and simple to set up. Unfortunately it’s not a subject that everyone enjoys reading about but at the same time it’s something that many businesses cannot do without.
Hopefully your business doesn’t fit in with any of the below but if it does we feel we have the answer to any concerns you might have.
Although the statistics may appear to be on the negative side, it doesn’t have to be like this for your business.
- 80% of companies have not developed crisis management for IT coverage to support business continuity, keeping the business functioning effectively.
- 25% of financial institutions have no business continuity plan.
- 19% of financial institutions who have business continuity plans have not tested them in the last five years.
- 80% of business without a well structured recovery plan are forced to shut within 12 months of a flood or fire (information courtesy of the London Chamber of Commerce).
Having a well structured plan in place can shockproof your business against many of the events that could, under normal circumstances prove catastrophic for your business.
Flooding, storm damage, power cuts, human error and computer viruses are common place events that can adversely affect the functionality of a business. These are just a few of the many unexpected reasons a business might have to cease trading. Small and medium sized businesses are particularly vulnerable if they don’t have a contingency plan in place when disaster strikes.
Having a Business Contingency Strategy is proven to protect your business:
- Minimise interruption of normal business operations.
- Limit disruption and damage.
- Minimise any financial and reputational repercussions.
- Establish alternative means of operations.
- Train personnel in emergency procedures.
- Provide smooth and rapid service restoration.
Quite simply, the question we’re asking businesses to think about is “how does your plan stack up?” Could your business continue to function without an office or IT system?
You’re probably now thinking “do the costs add up and is it really worth it?” The following example might help. This is what occurred when Sabre Travel’s IT system crashed for 3 hours.
Sabre Travel – Sabre operate a booking system used by 300 of the world’s biggest airlines. The travel world was thrown into turmoil when their systems went down.. From a customer’s perspective thousands faced long delays, cancellations and couldn’t book flights. From a business perspective there was the loss of income due to customers inability to book flights and a negative impact on brand image.
The outage is estimated to have cost Virgin Airlines between £6.5 and £10 million pounds.
On a much smaller scale, a business with a yearly revenue of £250,000 can expect costs of £147.00 per hour, or £1,176.00 per day from down-time. These figures do not include the costs of reputational damage and potential fines if data is lost due to an incident.
When looking at those costs, can a SMB survive for example a week of downtime resulting from flooding? Disasters such as this don’t only carry financial costs, but also reputational damage. Furthermore, the disaster may lead to a loss of data which can result in hefty penalties from regulatory bodies.
On a positive note, choosing a solution that is both cost effective and meets your requirements has just been made a whole lot easier. Just ask yourself the questions below and if any of them make you feel a little uncomfortable the planning process has already begun.
- When did you last try restoring your business critical data?
- Are you confident that in the event of a disaster recovery that you can get your IT system back-up seamlessly?
- If your office became unavailable what would happen to you clients and staff?
- Could you survive for more than a week without IT and an office?
- Does your insurance cover your business for loss of data and income?
- Do you know how much your business would lose as a result of 1 week of downtime?
Get a quote from Netcetera for your DR today and even if your current agreement isn’t up for renewal any time soon we’ll keep the quote valid so you can compare what’s available, helping you to make the right choice.
Questions?
To speak to one of our Sales Consultants about what our services can do for you, or for any other queries, please call 0800 808 5450 or Chat Live with one of the team
