Top 10 Disaster Preparedness Tips for Businesses
Top 10 Disaster Preparedness Tips:
- Take Care of Your Employees
- Have a basic emergency supply kit ready.
- Make sure everyone knows your evacuation procedures.
- Plan where to meet and whom to contact after an evacuation.
- Identify Assets Most Critical to Your Business
- Which data do your customers need the most?
- Which systems and applications are essential to your day-to-day operations?
- How long can your business wait while you recover from a failure or disaster?
- Determine What Your Business is Most at Risk for
- Understand what an hour or day of IT downtime could cost your business and what could cause downtime.
- Know the elevation of your office to decide whether you’re at risk of flooding.
- Conduct an earthquake and fire safety evaluation.
- Evaluate the Solution(s) You Have in Place
- Can you virtualize your entire IT infrastructure off-site?
- Can your disaster recovery solution be centrally managed?
- Do you have a dependable solution that automatically backs up your most recent files?
- Evaluate Your Solution Provider
- Do they offer a single, simple solution to protect your business information and eliminate IT downtime?
- Do they have a disaster preparedness plan of their own so that they can help you during a disaster?
- Is their solution built on reliable hardware and software? Are they dependent on other vendors?
- Write a Recovery Plan
- Clearly define and document the steps needed to recover your network and ensure employee safety.
- Post recovery steps around the office for employees to see.
- Regularly Test Your Recovery Plan
- Review your plan documentation on a quarterly basis with department heads.
- Make sure department heads review disaster recovery procedures with their teams.
- Conduct live tests at least twice per quarter.
- Document the Details of Your Test
- What went well and what did not?
- How can you improve procedures that did not go well?
- Regularly Update Plan as Company Evolves
- Is your plan still relevant to the business?
- Have any company changes been made that could impact your disaster preparedness plan?
- Are all of the people that have been assigned specific disaster recovery tasks still with the company?
- What happens if someone is unreachable? Do you have backups for key roles?
- Stay Informed and Communicate with Others
- Stay current on weather forecasts in your area.
- Make sure all other businesses in your network also have a disaster preparedness plan.
- Decide how you will communicate with partners and customers, and listen to local authorities for updates.
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