Top 10 Disaster Preparedness Tips for Businesses

Top 10 Disaster Preparedness Tips:

  1. 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.
  1. 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?
  1. 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.
  1. 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?
  1. 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?
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. Document the Details of Your Test
    • What went well and what did not?
    • How can you improve procedures that did not go well?
  1. 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?
  1. 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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