Discussion : Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

Discussion: Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

Natural disasters and cyber-attacks significantly impact business today than in business operations a few decades ago. The reliance on online systems for major business processes means that disruption of information technology infrastructure can adversely impact a business and, in extreme cases, result in crippling or business-ending loss. Disaster recovery plans are detailed plans showing how a company intends to circumvent the inconveniences to its business processes that may arise from either of their disruptions. The business continuity plan specifically outlines the continuation of business operations during such a disruption. This paper explores the business rationale for these two critical pieces of documentation.

Documented disaster recovery and business continuity plans harmonize the organization’s handling of these disruptions. Companies typically include many people working towards a joint goal. Documented plans can be shared amongst the team, and all members are made aware of their role and where to find the necessary systems to continue operations. This harmonization saves time and allows the company to maintain or build new customer relationships during the crisis period.

Formal disaster recovery and business recovery plans establish a chain of command for the crisis period. The traditional chain of command may not work during a crisis as this may rely on communication infrastructure. Developing and rehearsing these scenarios using these documents establishes direct lines of communication between the coordinator of backed-up information and the frontline workers (Lozupone, 2017). This direct line enables the business operations to continue until the frontline workers can report to their seniors.

The formal plans force businesses to create lean business operation systems for disruption scenarios. These plans require committees to handle the development. This group is tasked with identifying critical processes and the data needed to execute them. Once a business knows these processes, they understand the criticality of each system and can bypass unnecessary ones. This availability of a skeleton business structure is essential to establishing business branches for new markets at minimal cost (Bashan & Jacob, 2021). Therefore, the plan development process simplifies the business to its core operations and provides the off-site data to support them, enabling simpler expansion.

Formalized plans make practical plans for backup customer support infrastructure. Today’s customers have high expectations due to increasing competitiveness in most industries. Losing customer support services for a few hours may convince customers to sign with other service providers (Fabeil et al., 2020). Thus, the plan is an essential component of any business’ customer retention strategy because it creates, tests, and updates critical systems for ensuring continued support for the client and maintenance of critical business operations. An already established system can replace disrupted ones faster than quickly rigged ones after disruptions.

Disaster recovery plans necessitate the creation of off-site backups that can assure data authenticity. The importance of data in today’s world creates the need for data authentication systems. Off-site back-ups are accessed by a few people and can serve as authentication copies for suspect data. These systems can help the company manage the business more effectively and prevent the reliance on data from misleading decision-makers. This backup also provides long-term storage, which can reduce business costs by requiring the company to pay for online quick-access systems for short-term data instead of all their data. These benefits increase the value of these documents and the systems they establish for the business.

Although businesses may view disaster recovery and business continuity plans as expensive undertakings, the two documents and the associated systems they create are worth more than they cost. Today’s business reliance on technology means larger vulnerabilities around data and these documents counter most challenges. They ensure businesses retain customers, save on data storage costs, and maintain valid data for all purposes. These benefits increase the importance of creating, testing, and updating these documents to align with evolving business practices. 

References

Bashan, A., & Jacob, A. B. (2021). Global Quality Management Systems: Strategies in a Challenging, Complex Environment of Mergers, Acquisitions, and Strategic Partnerships. American Journal of Management Science and Engineering, 6(4), 103-116. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajmse.20210604.14

Fabeil, N. F., Pazim, K. H., & Langgat, J. (2020). The impact of Covid-19 pandemic crisis on micro-enterprises: Entrepreneurs’ perspective on business continuity and recovery strategy. Journal of Economics and Business, 3(2). https://ssrn.com/abstract=3612830

Lozupone, V. (2017). Disaster recovery plan for medical records company. International Journal of Information Management, 37(6), 622-626. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2017.05.015