A Good Disaster Recovery Strategy Can Save Your Business

There are countless ways your organization could face down a disaster, whether it’s a high-profile natural disaster, a physical disaster, or a technology-related disaster. If you aren’t prepared to face the consequences, your business could falter in the face of such incidents. How can your business best prepare itself for all manners of disasters?

Disaster Recovery Is a Big Issue

There are two ways to approach a disaster: reactive and proactive. The reactive approach involves the mindset that you cannot prevent the disaster; therefore, there is no reason to try, as you will experience the consequences anyway. The other mindset, proactive, subscribes to the idea that you can be ready for a disaster and can mitigate the damages ahead of time with the right amount of preparation.

In just about all situations, it’s better to be proactive than reactive, especially in the case of disaster recovery. Due to the nature of the situations, you never know if and when they will strike, so you had best be prepared to handle natural disasters, physical disasters, and technology disasters. Let’s go over them.

Natural Disasters

A natural disaster is usually what people think of when they think of disasters, and they include situations like fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and so on. You could even put a pandemic in this category. While the severity might vary, there can be no denying that these situations can impact operations. You need to have a plan to address unexpected weather and illness for your business; the continuity of operations hangs precariously in the balance.

Physical Disasters

A physical disaster has to do with the physical infrastructure of your company, which might include your building, its utilities, physical security breaches, or theft. Examples include burst pipes, HVAC system errors, and power failures. While it might not seem like a massive loss, you can be sure that the accumulated downtime will be costly enough to make you wish you had a contingency plan in place.

Technology Disasters

Technology disasters are the result of technology failures, including the components of systems, as well as cybersecurity breaches. These are the most likely issues you will deal with regarding your hardware, and it will inevitably fail with enough wear and tear. Furthermore, they require a very specific skill set and expertise to maintain. Technology-related disasters like data loss and cyberattacks can both be prepared for, so it’s your responsibility to do so.

How to Go About Planning for the Worst

The general goal of a disaster recovery plan is to reduce downtime and get back to business as usual as quickly as possible. The devil is in the details, here; you need to know exactly what must be done, including metrics and benchmarks you want to hit, in order to successfully prepare for a disaster incident. There are certain things you’ll need regardless of the situation, though, such as data backed up both on and off-site. With the appropriate preparation, you can ensure that these situations don’t derail your operations.

Washington Works can help you build out a disaster recovery plan and test it periodically to ensure your business can recover without a hitch. To learn more, reach out to us at 301-571-5040.