By: Julia Aidan
Submitted: 2010-06-17 11:22:13 | Word Count: 453
Resuming business after any disruptive event is known as the disaster recovery process. This method starts after the disaster and is time consuming if you do not have a arrangement in place, resulting in discontinuity of your business and incurring losses. The event may be external or internal failure of computer systems. The tendency among most business executives and entrepreneurs is to neglect "disaster recovery" plans assuming it to be an unlikely incident.
Retrospectively,people face natural disruptions in business and it is essential to be vigilant. A comprehensive business continuity plan helps you run the business efficiently and continue making money. These two norms 'business continuity' and 'disaster recovery' are very similar in eventful situations.
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Different businesses want different types of plans and it depend on the size, scope and the way the business is run by the company. The communication and feed back among employees are vital. In framing the business continuity solutions, the important point are that the physical, IT and human resource procedure are to be converged, because developing above plans in seclusion will hamper communication. Continual communication is crucial.
The first step for any calamity recovery solutions is to do a business impact analysis (BIA). The impact is felt on outage. It also helps judge the expenses to be incurred by a company to restore the business method and how much extra has to be spent to replace the process quickly. The other advantage of BIA is that companies are able to develop a restoration sequence to determine which constituents of a business should be restored first, so as to enable the company to resume activities as soon as possible.
The second step is to expand, practice and put a contingency plan in place. This includes a succession plan for your CEO in case of death or departure, and having trained personnel as back up employees to perform critical tasks in case of an emergency.
The third important step is disaster communication plans. In an emergency situation, the 'business continuity solution' plan should have in place crisis communication plans for top executives and offsite crisis meeting places. Practice crisis communication with employees, customers and others related to speed up communication. In addition invest in alternate means of communication.
The fourth step is to make the business continuity exercises sensible enough so that employees react confidently in a crisis. Familiarize and form partnerships with local emergency response units, like the police, firefighters and emergency medical teams.
Lastly, review the performance of your personnel and technology during each disaster recovery test, stop the loopholes if any, and work towards stable improvement.
