When the UK was hit by Storm Arwen it caused significant damage to electricity supply. As a result, the UK government has started a review into how power companies responded after the storm caused major damage to homes and businesses and left many without electricity for 12 days. Ensuring business continuity is key in such situations, but how to implement this?
Such a disaster or outage could happen anywhere. Has your company ever been hit by the unexpected? Was your company affected after Arwen? What happened when the lights went out? Did you have a business continuity plan in place along with the necessary IT infrastructure to cope? Did you sink or did you swim?
Damaging disruptions
Disruptions to a business, such as power outages caused by storms or a direct cyberattack, can happen at any given time, even on weekends or after hours! Such disruptions can have a profound effect on both your financial and professional reputation and, in the worst-case scenario, can result in long-term damage or even closure.
We take it for granted that when we’re in the office, working from home or travelling to a meeting, we can turn on our computer or laptop and access any documents or data we need at any given time. It’s often not until that’s taken away by an external force that we realise how much we rely on the corporate IT infrastructure. It’s integral to any business.
Swim, don’t sink
Since we can’t fully predict how much damage a winter storm may cause or second guess when a cybercriminal may strike, it’s imperative that the business is prepared for every eventuality. When it comes down to successful business continuity, it’s vital to remember the adage: fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Whether you sink or swim is all down to being prepared and ready to act immediately. You need to be able to continue working and keeping afloat under any circumstances. Having a robust business continuity plan or disaster recovery plan in place is the most effective way of dealing with common issues such as enduring power cuts. Such a plan can ensure you and your team are able to function with the least amount of disruption possible and it doesn’t have to cost the earth.
Time to review
If you’re reading this and wondering whether your business continuity plan is fit for purpose or perhaps you’ve had your fingers burnt recently with an ineffectual disaster recovery plan, don’t worry, you’re in the right place!
Here at CCE we’ve been working with companies of all sizes to implement unrivalled business continuity plans for more than three decades. Proven time and again, we have the key knowledge and skills required to give you the peace of mind that when, not if, something happens it’ll be business as usual. Here’s a list of the services we offer:
- Remote backup services
Remote backup for virtual servers
Remote backup for workstations
Remote backup for physical server
Backup for Office365 workloads - Disaster recovery services
Disaster recovery for VMware and Hyper-V workloads
Bespoke disaster recovery solutions
So, if you want to protect your company against a system outage whether caused by a storm, hardware failure, software malfunction or cyberattack, we can build that into bespoke and strategic business continuity plan. We will work with you to test that plan and review it at an agreed frequency such as every six months to ensure it is fit for purpose.
If you’re thinking this type of service is the domain of larger organisations with deep pockets, think again. We can provide this service for any SME with Office365.
Here at CCE, we’ve always got your back come rain, shine or gale force winds!
Call or email Karl Glenn on +44 (0) 7736 404080 or Karl.Glenn@comingce.com for more details or to arrange a no obligation business continuity assessment at a time to suit you.