5 Steps to Create an IT Disaster Recovery Plan for Small Businesses

It can be disheartening to watch the business that you’ve worked so hard to make successful, be destroyed by a disaster. Forces like hurricanes, fires and cyberattacks can deliver a devastating blow to your business and, unfortunately, these sorts of events are always out of your control.
Larger companies are often better equipped to deal with these kinds of disasters, so they’re able to survive them. However, if you are a small business, you may not have the same resources and time to recover. This often leads to you being forced to shut your doors but not anymore. 
With a robust disaster recovery plan for small businesses, you can now mitigate these situations. At Redpalm, we’ve put together 5 steps to guide you through this process.
Let’s take a look at how you can create a disaster recovery plan for your small business!

1. IT Assessment and Inventory

You can begin by conducting a thorough inventory of your IT assets, including any on-site hardware, software and all cloud-based systems that your business generally relies on.
Once you’ve made a list of your IT resources, you can also ask your employees about how their work would be affected if certain systems were unavailable in the event of a disaster.
This assessment is essential to help you create a reliable disaster recovery plan and ensure the protection of your crucial data.

2. Create a Business Continuity Plan

After a disaster, it is essential that your business resumes its operations as soon as possible. For this to happen, you will need a business continuity plan.

• Conduct a business impact analysis before a disaster strikes. This can help you gain a better understanding of the impact that a disaster can have on your business. You’ll also understand how one could disrupt your operations and negatively affect your sales.
• Based on the analysis, you can identify the availability of the required resources to help you survive a disaster. You can also determine which resources you already have and which ones are urgently needed.
• Create a framework to support your plan, assign responsibilities to your team and develop alternatives to deal with issues arising due to loss of data.
• It is essential to regularly test your business continuity plan. This can help you identify weaknesses and then you can tweak it until the plan is satisfactory.

Our IT specialists can help you create and maintain a business continuity plan to ensure the protection of your business.
Reach out to us to evaluate and update your existing continuity strategy.

3. Create a Response Team

In the event of a disaster, everything can get incredibly chaotic, which can also make it difficult to decide your first move. To prevent any chaos and uncertainty, you can prepare a few steps in advance, which you and your employees can take to ensure the safety of your IT environment.
You can assemble an emergency response team that includes IT specialists and key staff members from your business departments. You can also conduct disruption rehearsals to ensure that the team understands their roles and responsibilities and are well-prepared for any IT disasters.

4. Review Your Insurance Policy

It is of utmost importance that your business is well-insured. However, there are various kinds of business insurance policies that cover natural disasters and cyber incidents. These coverages can include the cost of replacing your IT equipment as well as compensation for other major losses resulting from disasters. 
If you invest in these policies, be sure to include the details in your IT disaster recovery plan. You should also ensure that there are no major gaps in your coverage and that you have sufficient insurance to pay for the direct and indirect costs of a disaster.
If there are a few gaps, make sure to purchase additional insurance to protect your business from any after-effects of a disaster.

5. Maintain Backup Records

This is one of the most important steps in your disaster recovery plan. To avoid the loss of any essential and sensitive information, you will need to maintain duplicates of all your documents, records and other data. 
Our experts at Redpalm can help design and implement an innovative backup solution that will maintain the security of your small business. Depending on the type and scope of your business, our experts will suggest IT solutions that complement your business model. 
We have both off and on-premise solutions, which makes backing up your business data extremely smooth. 
Give us a call to see what solutions suit your business best.

Contact Redpalm to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan for Your Small Business

Whether or not you believe that your business may be at risk of a setback, it is always a good idea to create a disaster recovery plan. This can help secure your business from any future threats.
At Redpalm, we understand the negative impact that a disaster can have on small businesses. However, having dealt with similar situations, we are equipped to provide you with a variety of disaster recovery solutions. 
We work with robust cloud platforms and other hybrid IT solutions that’ll get you back on your feet quickly and smoothly.
Learn more about our services and get in touch with us now!