What is Business Continuity
Posted by Jean McKay on Fri, Aug 27, 2010 @ 05:05 PM
Whether you are a small shop with a few employees, a large company, or a one man show, your business is your livelihood and may provide the livelihood for many others. You want it to be successful and grow. So you do whatever you can to enhance it, and to protect it. What would happen if some type of disaster beset the company and you could not contact your clients, or could not perform the functions you have contracts that you have committed to that will not be fulfilled?
In case of emergency there are usually evacuation routes posted in a building. Most people buy insurance to cover damages, and most people using computers do back up their information. But there is so much more to it than that. We are facing more natural disasters than ever, and we have a slew of manmade problems to protect ourselves from. Do you worry about this stuff? Does it keep you up at night wondering if your network is fully protected from hackers, or if your IT staff was able to capture the latest transactions in case that old server crashes before you can afford to replace it? Do you have concerns about how your business would continue to function if certain events occurred?
If these things bother you, cause you stress by worrying about this sort of thing, the information here can help you. You do not need to feel this anxiety. You need to run your business, focus on the job, increase sales and profit. You need to live your life, and have fun, and relax, and focus. You do not need to spend time worrying about the ‘what if’s’.
Business Continuity is a way to ensure that your organization can continue to support your clients even during some type of incident or event and that it will survive afterwards. There are several aspects to this that help you determine what you have that is of value (and you determine what value means) and what you have that is at risk, and what is the best thing to do about it.