Whilst most companies may assume that their operations are efficient and failproof, there’s always room for improvement. 
Obstacles, especially in the IT environment, can arise anytime but your organisation can recover these efficiently depending on what solutions are available. This makes having a good business continuity plan important. 
With our reliance on technology in some capacity, it’s essential that every organisation has the right measures to deal with unplanned interruptions. If you’re looking to improve business continuity, proper management is essential to formulate a good plan.
The experts at Redpalm have curated a list of common IT business continuity mistakes most organisations make that have the potential to harm your business operations.
Let’s take a look.

1. Underestimating the Scale of Disaster

Power outages, storms and other disasters can happen at any time and affect large areas of the town or city. This makes it crucial to have your recovery site at a distance from your organisation so that it remains unaffected by the disasters.
Many people tend to underestimate the scale and impact a disaster can have when there is poor business continuity management. By having the server and backup in the same area, you risk losing the stored data which can then hamper the company’s operations.
Even with a cloud backup, some data is stored in a physical location which makes it essential to have the data centre in a different location. Irrespective of how well-planned you may think your business may be, underestimating a disaster should always be avoided.

2. Not Explaining the Business Continuity Plan to Your Staff

Employees are crucial for the efficacy of a business continuity plan and not explaining the details of the plan or lack of awareness about what is included can work against you.
One of the biggest business continuity mistakes most organisations make is not making their employees well-versed with the formulated plan. A lack of knowledge around this may cause confusion about how they should respond during a crisis. Since there’s not enough understanding of what areas are covered, this may lead to your employees making mistakes.
From how to handle the clients when the servers are down to explaining what schedules will come into effect when disaster strikes, they should be aware of what they need to do to ensure the operations are back up and running in no time.

3. Not Testing the Plan and Skipping Risk Assessment

Another point to add to your list of business continuity mistakes to avoid is to skip testing the plan and risk assessment. Since a business continuity plan isn’t like an insurance policy that needs to be claimed after a disaster strikes, make sure it’s effective through regular testing.
By testing the plan, you get insights into what works or if any issues need to be taken into account and improved on. A robust plan must address a multitude of scenarios, especially since there’s no guarantee that there’ll be people present when the disaster strikes.
A risk assessment test helps identify risks and problem areas that need to be focused on. Ideally, a risk assessment should be conducted before finalising the business continuity plan to ensure all important areas of your organisation are covered.

4. Not Reviewing the Plan Regularly

Businesses are evolving continually which means that your current business continuity plan may already be outdated. To make it relevant to your business’ growth, it needs to be reviewed and updated regularly.
While the company can decide on a period to review the plan, not identifying the red flags that indicate that something is amiss should immediately be considered to be one of the business continuity mistakes you need to take care of immediately.
Whether you have a dedicated IT partner like Redpalm or your own IT organisation in charge of business continuity, changing the plan according to the current structure and operations of the company is a responsibility that must not be neglected.

Contact Redpalm To Avoid Business Continuity Mistakes

If you’ve identified weak areas in your current business continuity plan or simply wish to make your existing plan more robust, Redpalm can help you with that.
With our business continuity and disaster recovery solutions, we can help businesses develop a better IT environment with better security and have backups and other measures in place to prevent losses in the event of a disaster.
To book your free IT review, get in touch with our experts today!