12-27-21 | Blog Post
What would happen if your office burned down? If there was a flood? If your data was compromised by ransomware, would it survive? Could your company recover? Do you have a plan? CIOs are asked these questions every day and, often, these questions keep them up at night. Knowing that your company is protected in the event of a disaster is priceless. Especially when we know that a majority of companies that do not have disaster recovery plans will be put out of business when disaster strikes. Other than the obvious benefits of peace of mind and business continuity, having a disaster recovery plan in place will help your business immensely and ensure that your data is secure.
Here are 5 ways that DR planning can benefit your business
A DR plan is only as strong as the people executing it. For this reason, encouraging your employees to take part in the DR planning process will give them more investment in the company and the plan as a whole. It’s good to know that if disaster strikes, employees will be on the same page and take the proper steps to handle it. Additionally, outlining specific roles and tasks for employees to undertake in a disaster situation helps to ensure a fast and effective recovery. Thus your business will incur less downtime and face less loss with an organized employee response.
The DR planning process puts the complete inventory of all of your assets into one convenient location. Not only is this beneficial in terms of disaster preparation, but understanding where and what your assets are makes data management easier and adds a level of security to it..
The DR planning process puts everything into perspective, including your underlying network. Through the process of detailed documentation of the network protocols companies can fully understand the network, making it easy to repair issues quickly. And with the right support, you can be assured your network is constantly being looked after.
The beauty of planning for a disaster in advance is that you have the ability to put your plan to the test (Here’s how to test your DR plan). Companies that lack resources and time frequently fail to test their DR plan. It’s like writing a report and failing to proof-read it! Testing a DR plan is one of the most crucial steps in the planning process, and holds numerous benefits for your business. How can you spend the time to plan and not be certain that your plan will actually work?
Testing a DR plan allows companies the benefit of trial and error. Additionally, they can uncover weaknesses in the plan and modify it accordingly. Testing the plan will save time and money in the long run and ensure that your business is, in fact, protected in the event of a disaster.
Cost savings
One of the biggest benefits to disaster recovery planning is the long-term cost savings. With an effective DR strategy in place companies can recover faster, avoiding the costs of lost revenue and lost customers associated with downtime. With a number of vendors, partners, customers, employees, and investors that your business interacts with, a DR plan can help protect those relationships amidst disaster.
What are the benefits of disaster recovery?
The Bottom Line
The disaster recovery planning process is comparable to insurance for your IT environment. Actually having a plan in place, should the worse actually become a reality, is essential to business continuity. And while a DR plan helps companies stay organized amidst a recovery situation, it has numerous other benefits associated with cost reduction, data security, and time savings.
