Disaster Preparedness For Businesses: Keep Adapting Even After The Pandemic
The spread of the coronavirus pandemic has taught all of us that we need to be prepared. Individuals need to be prepared in their day-to-day lives and be willing to adapt to changing environments, and companies need to adapt and impliment disaster preparedness for businesses best practices in order to keep commerce going.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen so many companies creatively adapt to the changing times and be better for it. Even in the wake of suspending business-as-usual, moving to remote work, or having to completely modify their business offering, companies can still thrive as long as they’re properly prepared.
When it comes to disaster preparedness for businesses, there are a few things that you need to take into account.
UNDERSTAND YOUR DISASTER RECOVERY CAPABILITIES
Consider natural disasters, power outages, or the risk of your systems going offline. What is your backup resolution? In preparing for these situations, you need to consider:
· The resources at risk
· How critical those resources are
· If those resources are backed up (either via the cloud or on external servers in other locations)
· How often systems are backed up
· And if systems are not backed up, what actions need to be too taken
· New costs and ongoing expenses
Certain companies are at more risk than others when it comes to data risk. Companies that move to the cloud will not have to consider external resources as much and should talk to their cloud providers to understand how they’re protected.
CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS TRAINING AND TOOLS
Ongoing education in cybersecurity is a necessity for all businesses. And if you do not have cybersecurity software in place, at a minimum you should be educating your staff.
The biggest risk facing companies are their employees who unknowingly fall victim to data breaches either by downloading malware or clicking a link in a phishing email. These are not malicious actions on the part of the employee, but they can have devastating consequences.
CREATE REMOTE WORKPLACE POLICIES
Coronavirus has shown us that remote work on a large scale is possible. But not everyone has implemented the proper precautions when it comes to remote work.
When we say “create a remote work policy,” we mean you need to create a set of rules that both the company and employee need to follow.
The company needs to provide:
· Adequate work-from-home supplies
· Cybersecurity software to protect employees
· Role-based access to cloud software
· A remote-based security architecture
While employees need to agree to following guidelines around:
· Reporting possible security threats
· Avoiding suspicious-looking emails
· Following guidance on how to use and organize remote tools
· Minimize additional remote costs and expenses
DIVE INTO YOUR EXPENSE DATA
Finally, in order to address disaster preparedness for businesses, you need to take a hard look at your expenses. Gaining visibility into your expenses using tailored solutions from Intelligent Bills allows you to free up budget dollars for disaster recovery. You might find opportunities to minimize shortfalls on your agreements, consolidate costs, and also discover expenses that are not critical to your business.
