Is Your Business Continuity Plan Ready For the 2020 Hurricane Season?

A business continuity plan is needed during this hurricane season. The season has been predicted to include frequent and powerful storms, which pose a dual challenge for small businesses that have to prepare for the hurricane while navigating the global pandemic. The hurricane season can cause havoc to your business while putting the continuity plan to test. This is why you need to prepare a business continuity plan to cushion you from the devastating effects of hurricane season. It only takes one storm during this season to significantly disrupt operations in your business and force you out of business.

Several parts of the United States are at risk of the effects of the 2020 hurricane season. The continuity planning and preparation will reduce or mitigate the degree of impact from the disaster. As the hurricane season ramps up, this is an opportune time to review your business continuity plan and ensure it is secure. You need to create a business continuity that incorporates the latest disaster recovery strategies during this hurricane season. As a business owner, the most important thing to consider during this hurricane season is whether your business continuity plan is ready for disaster hits. As a result, ask yourself if your business is prepared for the hurricane season with an updated business continuity plan. These are some tips to ensure your business continuity plan is ready for the 2020 hurricane season.

Implement A Business Continuity Plan

Business continuity planning should be implemented on a strategic level to ensure it covers any facility damage, data loss, or cause downtime. The type of loss suffered during a disaster has one of the most detrimental effects on businesses. A majority of companies without a business continuity plan never open up after experiencing an emergency. These businesses usually suffer data loss that forces them to go out of business within two years of experiencing a disaster.

Many business owners make a mistake of assuming that a disaster will only last a few days, and they will be back in business. This can be a grave mistake since you cannot predict what impact the hurricane season will have on your business. In the previous seasons, the hurricanes have caused more than 50 percent of small companies to go out of business. A substantial percentage of small businesses fail to reopen after a disaster because of lacking continuity planning. This is why it is essential to evaluate your business continuity strategy and ensure it is ready for any emergency.

When you implement a business continuity plan, you define how the business operations will be maintained after a hurricane season. The program is a guide highlighting how a business will get back up from the disaster. This means your enterprise will continue to function after a disaster and ensure smooth operations throughout the year.

One component of implementing the business continuity plan is to assess your level of risk through threat analysis. Evaluate your continuation plan to understand how you will keep the business running and how long the recovery will take. A risk assessment can identify the extent of damage and how to secure critical information safely.

Encrypted Data Backups Are Critical

A crucial aspect of a business continuity plan is to have data backups and protect data from getting lost. This is one of the effective continuity plans during a disaster. The backup plans are meant to protect your most crucial information and prevent data loss. Many devices in businesses are not adequately backed up, which is a high risk to firms in case of a disaster such as a hurricane season. There is an increased risk of losing your critical data during an emergency that can have devastating impacts.

In most cases, remote secure data backups are recommended to protect critical business information from getting lost during the hurricane season. This means you have to house the data in dedicated locations that are safe and secure and located far from the natural disaster. The idea is to protect your most crucial business data during this hurricane season by storing in external software or hardware devices.

Have A Recovery Plan To Deal With Business Interruption

Every business should have a disaster recovery plan before a hurricane season that outlines how it will get back up and running. A recovery plan is another preventive strategy that outlines backup plans for an enterprise during a disaster. It is a component of the business continuation plan that ensures everyone understands how to survive through the hurricane.

A comprehensive recovery plan provides guidance on how data will be accessed, who will require the access, and the steps that will be needed to remediate a failure after a disaster. The recovery plan entails equipping your employees with enough information on how to get through the hurricane season. It should guide how employees operate when the business closes down and how they will access the most critical information.

You will need to evaluate how your employees can continue to work during and after a hurricane season. For example, you can put remote working plans in place by budgeting for your employee infrastructure and access to the information and applications. The employees should know where you have kept copies of all critical data and how to access it.

Virtualize

A viable Virtualization plan is also needed during the hurricane season to recover any files. The virtualization entails storing your most important information in cloud storage as opposed to external hardware. It also describes backing up your data through an off-site storage vendor or maintaining redundant servers in different locations. The majority of businesses do not have virtual backup plans, which can be a problem if there is data loss due to a disaster.

Cloud backup is an essential component of business continuity planning that makes sure an organization is resilient. During this hurricane season, there is a threat of losing critical data when facilities are damaged. Therefore, having a virtual backup plan is essential in protecting your data in case of hardware or software failure. The backups are a shield, ensuring you don’t lose all your crucial and critical data during a disaster.

Bottom line

The 2020 hurricane season presents an opportunity to revisit your business continuity plan and ensure you are ready. These plans are a requisite for any business to offer an additional level of preparedness needed to remain functional even after the disaster. In essence, the continuity plan should ensure the business’s efficiency and operational organization after the end of the hurricane season. All organizations, regardless of size, will need to review their business continuity plans during this hurricane season. There is a possibility of the disaster, causing hardware failures that can lead to loss of essential data. With a continuity plan, you have the shield.

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