Business Continuity: it’s not an optional extra

How much would it cost your business if your website went down for a day, or a week? Or you couldn’t access critical customer information or other business data?
Every organisation needs a business continuity plan (BCP) and disaster recovery plan (DRP). These days, it’s not an optional extra – nor is it something you set and forget.

We depend on IT more than ever before, and the costs of a site outage, disaster or operational disruption would quickly add up. Without a DRP in place, there is no defined path to getting your IT systems up and running after a disruption – which means unnecessary delays, loss of revenue and increased damage to the business, including your reputation.

Formulating a plan

A good plan outlines the business processes and IT practices for managing through the incident and risk, to make your organisation more resilient.

It should be regularly monitored to secure ever-changing customer and business data, deliver highly available IT services, achieve high levels of service quality and align to business processes.

So what should your business continuity plan look like? Here are some of the questions you should ask yourself and your IT consultant:

• What are my business critical processes (what do I need to protect)?
• What are the costs of disruption (e.g. compliance, reputation, loss of income)?
• What is my Recovery Time Objective (RTO)? How quickly do I need to have systems up and running?
• What is my Recovery Point Objective (RPO)? How much data can I afford to lose?
• What are my business and technology operational risks (where are the weak points)?
• If you already have a plan… When was it last tested? Does it still meet business expectations of RTO/RPO? Have you rehearsed it with simulated disaster scenarios?

Protecting against risk
Many organisations start building a BCR/DRP framework themselves, but lack the expertise to get it across the line. Or, they lack the resources to verify and test their framework for all contingencies.

Frontline works with our suppliers and vendors to design the most effective business continuity solutions for our clients. We will help you define, implement and manage solutions that secure your infrastructure, protect your data and help you achieve business objectives.

Register now for a free ½ day* DR workshop with an HP business continuity expert

Frontline and HP are offering these free workshops to answer your questions around BCP/DRP, specifically:

• Where am I today?
• Where are my gaps?
• What is the best solution for my business?
• How to best present back to the business for budget approval?

* Frontline and HP understand that your time is important. The actual engagement may not take up a ½ day face to face, as it includes pre-workshop questionnaires. We will let you know if we need the full ½ day.