Joe Martin50% of all businesses fail before three years of their inception. A study conducted by the University of Berkeley found that 50% of small businesses don’t make it past their third year. Add to that the impact COVID-19 had on small and mid-sized businesses as well as the lack of financial resources, and the numbers go up.
This is why most entrepreneurs fail at their first business venture and have to shut down their business and give it another shot later on. Meanwhile there is also the risk of business failure caused by a natural disaster or cyberattack.
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word disaster in a business context? If you think that disaster is only associated with large corporations, enterprises or government based entities, you are wrong. Even startups and small businesses can face disasters.
Irrespective of whether your business is a startup or large scale enterprise, having a disaster recovery plan is essential. It can make all the difference between a business that is shutting their doors permanently and a business that gets back on its feet after a disaster.
Don’t know how to create a disaster recovery plan? AntiDos will teach you everything you need to know about creating a disaster recovery plan for your business.
What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?
Everyone defines disaster recovery plans differently. For some it is a plan that helps them recover from a disaster, for others it is a document that highlights steps businesses can take to ensure business continuity in case of a disaster. Meanwhile, some people also consider it a systematic approach that allows businesses to get back to normal after a disaster.
Why Should You Create a Disaster Recovery Plan?
Wondering why you should create a disaster recovery plan? Here are some reasons to convince you to create one for your business.
- Drastically cut down the recovery time
- Reduce the cost and losses caused by a disaster
- Secure critical processes so they don’t cause business disruption and ensure business continuity.
- Prevent reputation damage
- Protect your business operation from failure
How To Create a Disaster Recovery Plan?
Here are some steps you can take to create a disaster recovery plan.
1: Maintain an inventory of IT assets
Start your journey by maintaining an inventory of all your digital assets. After you have made a list of IT assets, the next step is to identify who has access to which asset. You don’t want to be ignoring devices as they can become the prime target for cybercriminals. Attackers use such devices as a source to launch more attacks. It is imperative that you have full control over your IT infrastructure and total visibility over all the assets.
2: Arrange them based on their vulnerability
The next step is to arrange all the assets based on their vulnerability. Put more emphasis on safeguarding your IT assets which are more prone to cybersecurity attacks. The primary focus of your disaster recovery plan should be on protection and restoration of critical business functions so your business continues to run smoothly even at minimum capacity.
3: Evaluate Potential Risks
Uncover risks that threaten your biggest assets because they are the ones capable of disrupting your business. Let’s say, your business units are not fully disrupted but you should still try your best to contain the damage, instead of allowing the threat to get out of hand and spread across the enterprise. Disasters can do the most damage when they can bring your entire enterprise system to its knees. Businesses need to know which assets are most at risk. and what tactics attackers might use to exploit those vulnerabilities.
4: Allocate a Budget
Finding a sweet spot is critical so you don’t end up overspending or underestimating your disaster recovery requirements. To save yourself from such issues, it is important to keep a small buffer so you don’t run out of money when you need it the most. You never know where the next disaster is coming from and when it could strike.
5: Choose a Disaster Recovery Setup
Disaster recovery sites can be of three different types:
- Hot site
- Warm site
- Cold site
Without understanding the advantages and disadvantages of different types of disaster recovery sites, you can never set up the right disaster recovery mechanism for your business. It is also important to know where your data backups are stored so you don’t have to scamper to find it when you want to recover your data.
6: Test, Test, Test
If you have followed all the aforementioned steps in the same order, now it is time to put your disaster recovery plan to test. Testing your disaster recovery plan will help you evaluate how effective your disaster recovery plan would be. You don’t want to be stuck with a disaster recovery plan that does not work when you need it to work the most. Let’s say, your disaster recovery plan still has loopholes, you need to iron them out before graduating to the next step.
Review
In today’s dynamic business world where everything including the threat landscape changes continuously, it is imperative that you have a flexible and adaptable disaster recovery plan. You should reevaluate your disaster recovery plan at least a couple of times a year or even more. If possible, you should also make a few tweaks to your disaster recovery plan to keep it relevant and fresh. This allows your plan to safeguard your business from emerging threats. You don’t need a disaster recovery plan for the past but for the future as well, so you should keep that in mind when creating one.
How do you create a disaster recovery plan for your business? Share it with us in the comments section below.
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