Businesses are put in danger every day by elements totally out of their control, from power outages to natural disasters. Online dangers also pose a threat. In 2021 there were more than 600 million cybersecurity attacks on businesses worldwide, resulting in millions of dollars, hours, and pieces of data lost forever. From the natural to the cyber, each of these disasters can be detrimental to your business. How can you prepare for the worst? By having a disaster recovery plan.

A disaster recovery plan is a strategy an organization deploys to handle unexpected incidents facing their organization. These incidents often take shape in the form of:

• Natural disasters, such as a power outages or building damage caused by hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, or tsunamis.
• Cyber-security threats, such as phishing scams or malware attacks.
• Power outages from inclement weather, human error, or generator overload.

Disaster recovery plans will help restore all the information your company may potentially lose due to these unforeseen circumstances. Cybersecurity threats in particular impact your company’s major IT assets, disrupting the workday, general business production, and valuable company data.

Why Disaster Recovery Plans Matter

An organization without a disaster recovery plan faces a loss of time, effort, and revenue, as well as hundreds or even thousands of dissatisfied customers with delayed orders, lost accounts, or stolen financial info. Without a disaster recovery plan, your business will waste time trying to find the solution to the issue you are facing rather than spending that time correcting it and rebuilding customer trust.

Understanding RPOs and RTOs

Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) are two major components of a disaster recovery plan. RPO measures how much data is lost during disaster recovery and indicates how often data needs to be backed up from the time your company sustains data loss. RTO is the amount of time it will take for your company to recover during an outage.

Configuring Remote Data Backups

Another vital component of any disaster recovery plan is the remote data backup site. Creating a secondary offsite backup for your company’s most important data is crucial to recovery. Without a backup, employee information, customer details, and other key data points could be lost.

Creating an Accountability Chart

Who will be the main point of contact should your systems crash? Who will contact customers and employees? Who will manage the public response? Create a chart indicating who is responsible for what in the aftermath of a disaster to ensure everything runs smoothly. This chart will make action plans easier to follow and restrict confusion, allowing your company to get up and running as soon as possible.

Our IT security and support experts at KDG can help you and your company plan and execute a disaster recovery plan, from developing training for management to auditing technology and endpoints to devising data backup schedules. An unexpected disaster can leave your team wondering, “What’s next?” With KDG, you do not have to face the unknown alone. Contact us to learn more about our disaster recovery and crisis management services for small, medium, and enterprise businesses.