Saturday, September 20, 2014

No Disaster Recovery Plan – Lose Business – Lose Jobs

What would happen if your company had a massive fire that destroyed the building that you worked in?  Would your company know what to do?  Would your company have a plan for restoring critical systems quickly to avoid customer impact and thus avoid loss of customers?  Would you still have a job a month or a year later?

Disaster recovery planning is critical for all companies small and large.  About 80% of companies without disaster recovery plans will fail in approximately one year after a disaster (Hatter 2004).  If a company has a significant loss of data, they will likely be out of business within five years (Hatter 2004).  And with those statistics, there is an alarming 30% of companies who say they do not have a disaster recovery plan.  An equally bad thing is that 40% of companies indicated that they have never tested the disaster recovery plans that they have created (Hatter 2004).  Testing a DR plan is a critical component to the plan because issues will not be discerned without testing.

Large companies are more likely to have a disaster recovery plan than small and medium sized companies.  Part of the problem is that these smaller companies do not feel they have the money to put into a disaster recovery plan.  Although most probably do not ever experience a true disaster, the losses can be large if a disaster occurs.  Maybe a company feels that is what insurance is for.  If a company has insurance and a fire destroys their business, will they survive?  Chances are they will not survive because they will have lost their customers during the time that they are restoring operations.

Overall, disaster recovery planning is critical to a business surviving the unthinkable.

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3 comments:

  1. Well said! If it is important, you should take a little time to make sure it is still around instead of disappearing after a disaster.

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  2. Absolutely! Use the analogy of a disaster recovery plan to a tornado or fire drill at a school. Why do they practice? So that, in the event it occurs, people are prepared. DRPs should be looked at the same by businesses. Why create a plan if you're not going to have a drill to test it? Great post, Margaret!

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  3. Thank both for taking the time to read my blog!

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