With new technological changes, most IT departments are migrating their data and applications to a Cloud Server.
What is the added value and role of Business Continuity in a Disaster Recovery exercise, given that generally the Disaster Recovery exercises are conducted by IT and performed remotely?
- Business Continuity exercises should be included (at-least annually) alongside Disaster Recovery exercises. This is because all businesses require people. Just because your IT is securely stored in the cloud – that doesn’t mean your business will automatically recover after a disaster. You still need to have a business continuity plan in place.
- You will need to consider the following factors, outside of IT:
- People – if your premises are uninhabitable following a disaster, where will your staff work from? It’s easy to assume everyone will work from home. However, is this something you’re already doing? Staff need to be comfortable working from home, connections established. Will your infrastructure cope with everybody dialing in remotely? Or, do you have an alternative premises prepared?
- Resources – what information, material and equipment do you need to continue your business?
- Suppliers – do you have all their contact details readily available? How will you cope if they are also impacted by this disaster?
- Finances – how will you continue to pay people during this disruption? Are accounts payable prepared to cover the additional expenses likely to be incurred in getting your business up and running again?
Here is some feedback from BCP Builder Community on this topic – taken from LinkedIn.
- Disaster Recovery is a sub component Business Continuity. Loss of IT resources, impacting activities, processes then ultimately products or services and ability of business to continue. So it is always a part of Business Continuity and not a separate thing. It doesn’t play a role in the exercise it is the overall objective of the Disaster Recovery exercise.
If you want to increase your Organizational Resilience, start with preparing a Business Continuity Plan and check out BCP Builder’s Business Continuity Planning Templates.
