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Regardless of the industry that you’re in, IT failures can create significant risks to your business. That’s why business continuity planning is becoming a critical step for more and more small businesses these days. Whether it’s a localized glitch with your software or a nationwide outage like the recent CrowdStrike catastrophe, business continuity management can help you continue business operations should you be affected by an IT disruption.
This article explores proactive strategies for preparing for and responding to IT outages, helping you reduce risks, safeguard critical information, and maintain operations. You’ll walk away with a clear understanding of business continuity planning and some immediate steps you can take in your business to be more prepared.
Key Takeaways
- IT failures can happen to anyone
- Having a business continuity policy in place ahead of time is crucial if you want to continue serving customers during an IT outage
- Employee training and infrastructure redundancy should be part of any strategy to mitigate the effects of IT problems.
In this article:
Understanding Business Continuity Planning
What is Business Continuity Planning?
Business continuity planning (BCP) refers to the set of procedures and business processes used to prevent and recover from disruptions and threats. The goal of BCP is to make sure that people and assets are protected and can keep the company running in the event of a disaster. Business continuity planning as it relates to IT focuses on preserving and returning business operations to normal as quickly as possible.
Key Objectives
The key objectives of BCP are to:
- Minimize Downtime: Getting key business functions back up and running rapidly.
- Protect Data: Secure sensitive and important data to avoid theft, loss, or damage.
- Operational Continuity: Keeping crucial operations running without interruption even when IT systems break down.
Risk Assessment and Analysis
Thorough risk assessments can help you prepare for IT failures. To conduct a risk assessment, start by creating an inventory of all IT assets, including hardware, software, and data. Evaluate how critical each component is to your operations, then do a threat analysis to identify potential sources of IT disruptions. This should include natural disasters, human error, and malicious attacks. Risk assessments will help you weigh how each risk could impact your business continuity over both the short and long term.
Finally, prioritize the risks based on their probability of occurring and the impact they would have on your company if they happened. Then, develop strategies to minimize those that are most significant. Note that this is not a one time exercise—as technologies and business contexts change, you will need to reassess your company and reevaluate your strategies.
Developing an IT Disaster Recovery Plan
An IT disaster recovery plan (DRP) outlines the steps necessary to bring back critical IT systems and data after a failure. Key components include:
- Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs): These specify how much time each system can be down for.
- Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs): These specify the maximum acceptable amount of data loss over time.
- Roles and Responsibilities: Assign every task in your plan to specific members of your team, and when possible, ensure there is a secondary assignee for each task, that way essential functions are always covered.
Data Backup and Recovery Solutions
After an IT failure, it’s essential to implement recovery strategies rapidly to quickly restore your systems. Implement a robust, proactive backup and recovery strategy that includes:
Frequent, Automated Backups: Schedule regular, automated backups to minimize data loss in the case of an emergency.
Offsite Storage: Backup data should be stored offsite in a secure location to protect against physical damage at your primary business site.
Testing Backups: Backed up data is susceptible to the same problems that your working data is. Conduct regular tests of your backup systems to ensure that they are working properly and that data can be restored quickly and accurately when needed.
Backup Techniques
As you work through your cybersecurity risk assessment and explore options, consider various data backup techniques, including full backups (updates all data), incremental backups (only updates data that has changed since the last full or incremental backup), and differential backups (only updates data that has changed since the last full backup), to find the solutions that best fit your company’s needs and budget.
Infrastructure Redundancy
Infrastructure redundancy refers creating duplicate systems that can take over if your main system fails. Tools for creating redundancy can include redundant servers, network connections, and even power supplies. Done correctly, redundancy can significantly reduce the risk of total system failure.
To select the right redundancy systems for your business, evaluate your budget and requirements. For example, small firms may find that cloud-based systems suffice, while larger companies may need their own redundant servers on location.
Employee Training and Awareness
No business continuity plan can survive without the participation and commitment of staff members. Have human resources train each of your employees on their respective roles in case of IT failure and ensure they understand how their tasks may vary depending on the systems and infrastructure that failed.
As a best practice, regularly (at least semi-annually) conduct simulations of IT failures as a way of testing your BCP and your team members’ reactions. For example, a doctor’s office might simulate a ransomware attack to ensure that patient data can be quickly and securely restored from backups. Similarly, a restaurant might simulate a power outage to test its ability to continue operations using backup systems.
These exercises help you identify weak spots in your emergency response plan such as delays in response, communication gaps etc. By rehearsing these situations, you can refine your continuity plans so that they will be ready for actual interruptions in times of crises and will keep critical business functions running.
Partnering with IT Support Services
If all of this has you feeling overwhelmed, remember that you don’t have to do all of this alone. As a basic first step, you can find business continuity plan templates online with a quick Google search. For additional aid with proactive emergency management, an external IT support or managed services company can help you create and implement these plans. They offer specialized knowledge, resources, and support to help you with IT crisis management. This is especially important when regulatory issues are concerned, so don’t wait until disaster strikes to explore this option.
When choosing an IT support partner, look for companies with a proven track record in business continuity and disaster recovery. During your discovery process, they should ask in-depth questions and make it clear that they understand your business needs and can provide tailored solutions.
Testing and Updating the Continuity Plan
Test your business continuity plan regularly to ensure it remains effective. Use the results of these tests to identify areas that need improvement and update your plan accordingly. It’s also important to include your BCP as part of onboarding for all new staff.
It’s not uncommon for business owners to ignore this step, but even small businesses are changing on a regular basis. There’s a good chance you’ve changed vendors, updated systems, or added new processes over the last six months to a year that could have created new vulnerabilities. Testing and reviewing your plan will ensure that you minimize your risk to IT failures.
Conclusion
Effective business continuity planning for IT failures is crucial for maintaining operational stability and protecting critical data. By following the best practices outlined above can help you avoid the worst consequences of IT disruptions and enhance your company’s resilience.
FAQ
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What is the first step in business continuity planning for IT failures?
The first step is to conduct a thorough risk assessment to identify potential vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure, whether from outages, cyberattacks, or elsewhere.
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How often should a business test its IT disaster recovery plan?
A business should test its IT disaster recovery plan at least annually, or more frequently if there are significant changes to the IT environment.
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What are the best practices for data backup in business continuity planning?
Best practices include regular, frequent backups, offsite storage of backups, and regular testing to ensure data can be restored quickly and accurately.
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How can small businesses manage IT failures effectively through business continuity planning?
Small businesses can manage IT failures by developing a robust business continuity plan, implementing redundancy, training employees, and partnering with external IT support services.
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What role do employees play in the success of a business continuity plan during IT failures?
Employees play a crucial role in IT service continuity management by understanding their responsibilities, participating in drills, and executing the continuity plan effectively during IT failures.
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