Does my business need a disaster recovery plan?

SCORE counselor Bala Subramanian reminds us that based on current events businesses large and small should have a Disaster Recovery plan in place.

“Small business owners need to plan for many contingencies including unexpected disasters. The gulf oil spill illustrates this fact vividly. While the media and society considers this as BP’s (a large business by any measure) failure and accuses their unpreparedness for that eventuality, all small businesses such as: fisherman, oysterman, tourist industry dependents, i.e., restaurants, hotels, etc., affected by that event are equally unprepared. If those small businesses had considered the impact of such unexpected catastrophic events, they could have been better prepared to state their claims and not only seek compensation but also have alternate solutions for their survival, insuring their continued existence.

Business plans rarely include disaster recovery. Disaster recovery caused by an internal or an external failure is essential for large as well as small businesses.

In the case of a small business, owners should plan for such eventuality and have a contingency action plan that would enable them to relocate re-source-suppliers and continue their services to their customers. Even in cases when there are only walk-ins and the customers are transients, a disaster recovery plan can provide valuable information to those end-users, clients and the dependants of those businesses services; an alternative way to have those services available to them in an uninterrupted manner.

The DR (disaster recovery) or BC (business continuity) plan begins with risk analysis and ends with a plan that needs constant updating. There are several steps in between which answers questions such as: What are the threats? What are the probabilities associated with each of those threats occurring? Prioritizing and ranking the threats using an estimate, perhaps based on the cost associated with the loss of value to your business if that threat occurred.

Each business is unique in its needs and with thoughtful consideration you can create a Disaster Recovery Tool Kit for your business that may include:
 A contingency check list or a questionnaire.
 An audit questionnaire.
 A dependency analysis document (with questions, guidelines and a time frame).
 A business impact analysis.
Based on these findings each small business needs to have an action list to recover from any disaster contingency.

Here is a link to more resources: http://www.businesscontinuityworld.com/tool.htm, an organization that specializes in providing technical services.

If you as a small business owner feel this to be of importance and want to learn more, contact SCORE at the number below to arrange a free counseling session.”

Richard Strug
Greater Princeton Area SCORE (Chapter 631)
Serving Mercer and Middlesex Counties