There’s no doubt about it. The way we work has evolved in recent years. Even before COVID-19, more companies were relying on remote workers. Now, the pandemic has ushered in a new acceptance of remote work. Our recent Future Workforce Report shows that 68% of hiring managers say remote work is going more smoothly now than when their company first made the shift at the start of the pandemic.
With this change comes new IT challenges. As flexible and remote workforce structures become more popular, businesses rely more on cloud computing and have additional data security concerns. Even if you’re confident in the skilled professionals working for your company, it’s important to remember that IT disasters can still occur.
Every time your business is disrupted by an IT emergency, it costs your company money. The longer these disruptions last, the more it costs you—and the worse the long-term damage is. The future of your business depends on having a disaster plan in place. It could mean the difference between a temporary setback, one you easily bounce back from, and a large-scale catastrophe that shuts down operations.
Keep reading for everything you need to know about developing an IT disaster recovery plan that suits your organization. This comprehensive resource will walk you through all the steps you need to take.
IT disaster recovery: Planning for the worst
You know what they say: Prepare for the worst but hope for the best. This should be your approach to creating an IT disaster recovery plan for your company.
These days, there are numerous potential causes of IT disasters, though. This means you need to be prepared from several different angles. Even with the most meticulous procedures to protect your business’s systems and sensitive data, you might never be able to prepare for every possible IT threat.
Still, you can be ready for the most common IT disasters:
- Hardware failure. A mechanical hardware failure could wipe out all of your data, leaving you in a pickle. It’s the primary cause of data loss and systems going down.
- Software incompatibility and malfunctions. Unexpected software failures can corrupt data and leave your team scrambling to mitigate the impact.
- Viruses and malware. Whether through email-based phishing attacks or suspicious downloads, viruses and malware target your company’s IT systems. These malicious intruders usually aim to delete, steal, or hold your sensitive business data for ransom.
- Human error. Humans are imperfect creatures and often make mistakes. The errors they make on the job are another leading cause of security breaches.
As you prepare your company’s IT disaster recovery plan, you need to keep these possible scenarios—and others—in mind. Prevention should be your main goal, but you should also plan for their possible occurrence. Keep reading for steps to consider for an effective recovery plan.
How to develop an IT disaster recovery plan for your company
When you face an IT disaster, your goal is to get your company functioning again quickly. Here are the steps to take when creating a recovery plan for your business.
Establish your team’s goals and priorities
You first need to establish your team’s goals and priorities during an incident. These priorities depend on the scenario that your business is facing. Plausible scenarios include hardware and software issues and human errors that cause data breaches.
In these cases, what’s your primary goal? Protecting and recovering data? Ensuring your company can continue to operate through the disaster? Bringing your company back online?
Identify essential data and other assets to protect
Before disaster strikes, you should compile a list of all essential data, assets, and login information. You don’t want to scramble for these details during an emergency. This will cause you to lose valuable time, which could mean further breaches and more money lost.
If you’re wondering what you should include on your list, consider these items: networks, servers, desktop and laptop computers, wireless devices, tools used to connect to your internet service provider, your power supply, and all software applications.
If your business operates out of more than one office, or you have a separate center for data storage and processing, you’ll need to make a separate list for each location.
Figure out how long you can remain down
If there’s an IT emergency, you must calculate how long your business can remain down. This number will create a deadline for when you should aim to have things running again.
The nature of your business will determine how effectively your company can continue to operate during an IT crisis. For instance, say your email servers are down. If you run a small air conditioner repair company, this likely won’t affect you much. Sure, you might have some minor hiccups communicating with customers, but your operations will largely go unscathed, and your team will be able to complete its work.
If your company is an e-commerce business, that’s a different story. Your daily operations rely on email, and having those servers go down could severely impact how your team does its job.
Set backup protocols necessary to ensure continuity
Your company should have a backup strategy to ensure you can continue operating even during an emergency. It’s likely that your company already uses cloud storage to back up data, which will be useful during a disaster. If you don’t already utilize this backup method, you should, especially if you rely on a remote workforce spread across different physical locations.
You should have other contingency plans in place, as well. Maybe you have a plan for your staff to work from home. During an emergency, many companies are likely to let more workers work remotely.
Perhaps you ask team members to use their personal computers for work purposes if the hardware at your office fails. And depending on the problem, you might need to find an alternate power source or internet connectivity. This backup plan should also include how your company will support workers during this stressful period of uncertainty.
Test your plan with your team
Routine testing of your IT disaster recovery plan will ensure that it works the way you intend. During these disaster exercises, your team should walk through your plan step by step. Not only will this identify areas that need to be tweaked, but it will also save you time during an actual emergency if your staff is familiar with their roles.
Testing this plan might look different for every company and could include anything from a group read-through of the steps to a complete simulation of your IT disaster mode.
Review and revise your plan over time
As your business grows and changes, you’ll need to review your IT disaster recovery plan every so often to ensure it remains effective. If you relocate your offices or data processing equipment, upgrade your hardware and/or software, or your company grows significantly in size, these are all good reasons to revise your plan. Otherwise, your IT support team should review your emergency response plan annually.
Enhance your prevention and planning efforts with global tech talent
As the workforce changes, your company must be prepared for any IT disaster that emerges. All businesses—big and small—should develop and implement an IT disaster recovery plan tailored to their unique circumstances and needs.
You should keep these potential disasters in mind as you staff your company. You want to hire top technical talent with the skills needed to mitigate such emergencies as they arise.
Partner with Upwork when staffing your IT team. Upwork has all the resources you need for finding the top technical talent and independent professionals who can create, execute, and monitor your IT disaster recovery plan.
