Disaster Preparedness for Businesses-Adapting After the Pandemic
The spread of the coronavirus pandemic has taught us all a great deal. The least of which is the importance of being prepared. As individuals, we need to adapt and prepare in our ever day lives and business all over the world need to adapt and effectively implement disaster preparedness in order to keep commerce thriving.
During COVID-19, we have seen many companies creatively adapt to changes and difficulty. Even in the wake of suspending business-as-usual, remote work, and in some cases, having to completely modify their business offering, companies can still thrive.
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 consider:
- The resources at risk.
- How critical are those resources?
- If/how are those resources backed up (via the cloud on external servers in other locations)?
- How often are systems backed up.
- If systems are not backed up, what is the action plan for implementing back up?
- New costs as well as ongoing expenses and other fees.
Obviously, some companies are more at risk than others when it comes to data. Companies that migrate information to the cloud will not have to consider external resources as much and should discuss how they are protected with their cloud providers to further understand those risks.
CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS TRAINING AND TOOLS
Ongoing education in cybersecurity is paramount. If you do not have cybersecurity software in place, and you should, then at a minimum you should be educating your staff.
Why? Because the biggest cyber-risk facing companies are 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 and productive. But not everyone has implemented appropriate business protocols when it comes to remote work. Organizations must discuss, create and document a set of guidelines that both the company and employees must agree 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 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, to effectively address disaster preparedness you need to dive deep into the details of your spending. Gaining deep visibility into your expenses can immediately free up dollars for disaster recovery. You might find opportunities to minimize shortfalls on your contracts, consolidate costs, and discover expenses not critical to your business. All of which can lead to significant savings.
