5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

Whether your business is large or small, you need a disaster recovery plan in place. In fact, here are 5 reasons why an IT disaster recovery plan is so important for businesses much like your own.

In an ideal world, your company’s data would always remain intact. In other words, a data disaster wouldn’t be a thing.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. And disasters are all too real. The unfortunate thing is that many company owners believe that nothing bad will happen to their data — that is until it finally does happen and runs them out of business.

Whether your business is large or small, you need a disaster recovery plan in place. Here is a rundown of five reasons why an information technology (IT) disaster recovery plan is so important for businesses much like your own.

Let’s jump in!

What Exactly is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

This type of plan is a plan that essentially combines proven disaster resolutions and data backup to accomplish the following three goals:

• Ensure uptime
• Maximize productivity
• Diminish the loss of data

Put another way, no matter what type of error or trouble plagues your data, your business’s information will remain safe, thus protecting you against the several problems outlined below.

1. Loss of Customers

The modern customer is not patient for one simple reason: He or she does not have to be.

If your customers can’t get a particular product or service from you due to a business data disaster, don’t expect them to be sympathetic — at least not enough to stay with you while you work out the bugs in your system. Instead, expect them to search for better offers elsewhere.

That means the immediate loss of revenue for you. And this can be a major issue long term since the clients you have lost may never return to your company.

2. Loss of Potential Clients

If you lack a disaster recovery plan, it won’t just affect your current clients. It’ll also affect your potential future ones.

After all, once you lose the trust of your current customers, these individuals may tell their friends and co-workers about your issues and discourage them from using your company.

What’s worse, they may post negative comments about your business on online business rating sites or on social media, where you can never remove them.

All of this can deal a blow to your reputation and online identity. Ultimately, it means additional revenue will be lost simply because you didn’t have a disaster recovery plan in place.

3. Loss of Employees

If your company is struggling with a data disaster, this will no doubt have a negative impact on your employees.

They’ll be frustrated due to the pressure they feel to satisfy your business’s disgruntled clients. And unfortunately, if your disaster prevents them from being able to use their software, phones or email, they might feel utterly helpless. This may, in turn, decrease their self-esteem.

In the end, if your staff cannot keep working due to a disaster you failed to prepare for, some may end up moving to greener pastures — ones where they can continue to make a living for themselves and their families.

4. Termination of Staff

Losing staff through attrition following a data disaster is bad enough without also having to terminate staff members due to financial issues stemming from the disaster.

Unfortunately, client churn may cause your company to lose money, which might mean you need to reduce salaries and eventually impose layoffs to decrease your staff size.

Few things are more painful than terminating individuals who have been loyal to your business for several years. But it very well may happen if you don’t take disaster recovery planning seriously.

5. The Future Is Unpredictable

It only makes sense to create a disaster recovery plan considering that you can’t predict the future.

For one, natural disasters may cause you to experience costly downtime. These include floods and hurricanes, for example. A recovery plan won’t prevent natural disasters from affecting you, but it will safeguard your data and make sure that downtime doesn’t impact your business.

In addition, cybercriminals are increasingly active, targeting companies they feel are not protected. And we’re not just talking about large corporations; we’re talking about small businesses, too.

After all, no matter how large or small your business is, you likely have essential client data that are important to keep confidential. You simply can’t afford to allow the wrong parties to access this information.

Along the same lines, sometimes the cause of a major data loss has more to do with human error and less to do with a sinister mind. A single incorrect move can easily wipe out your company’s data in a split second.

Furthermore, sometimes the problem isn’t a human being but rather your system itself. Systems, machines, and hardware eventually fail, and when this happens, data loss is inevitable if you haven’t taken the necessary precautions.

Any of these issues could cause your business to go from flourishing to floundering and eventually filing for bankruptcy. This is why having a backup plan is so critical: It’ll decrease the impact of any data disaster you may encounter.

What a Disaster Recovery Plan Should Look Like

So, it’s clear that having a disaster recovery plan is in order. But where do you start?

For starters, realize that although some data problems can be resolved in minutes or hours, others may require days or even weeks or months. So, while you’re trying to resolve a data situation, you need to have a temporary solution in place.

Of course, this temp solution must be able to deliver a level of service that is relatively normal, which means you need to keep your data up to date before a data incident occurs.

In addition, as part of the data disaster resolution process, be prepared to reinstall your computers’ operating systems. This means you’ll need dependable backup copies of your databases and files to quickly rebuild everything.

How We Can Help You

We are a leading provider of managed IT services in the Central Florida and Southern California regions.

Contact us to learn more about how to create a disaster recovery plan that will help to protect your reputation and your bottom line no matter what technological disaster may come your way.