To err is human, but errors are the last thing any business needs. Sometimes these problems are completely out of our control – think natural events like severe weather, as well as power outages, cyberattacks, and vandalism. Nevertheless, your business needs a way to keep its workflows moving regardless of any disaster. This is where disaster recovery comes into play.

Whether you own a small business or lead a large enterprise, a comprehensive disaster recovery plan is a must-have. This article takes a closer look at some of the key benefits that disaster recovery planning offers both small-to-medium businesses and large enterprises.

Safeguard Your Business with Disaster Recovery

Ask yourself what you would do if something put a halt to your business processes. For instance, how would you recover if a devastating fire or severe flooding destroyed critical parts of your business, leaving it unable to function for days, weeks, or even longer? An hour-long power outage seems minor in comparison, but even a brief outage has the potential to wipe out crucial data or critical applications.

Unfortunately, downtimes caused by unforeseen disasters are more common than you think. A Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark Survey found that over a third of respondents lost one or more of their critical assets for hours at a time, while one in four reported losing most or all of their data centers for hours or even days following a disaster.

Few businesses can afford the losses that come with extended downtimes, nor can they predict when these disasters happen. Disaster recovery gives companies the tools to protect themselves from misfortunes and human errors and help them resume operations with as little downtime as possible.

A comprehensive disaster recovery plan involves protecting data and applications against potential loss and their post-outage recovery. This includes 24/7 monitoring as well as daily backups of critical data off-site or via cloud storage. DR solution providers aim to restore operations according to a business’s recovery time objective when an outage occurs. RTO refers to the amount of time it takes to recover operations before an outage seriously impacts a business.

The shorter the RTO, the faster a business can resume operations. However, a shorter RTO also comes with the tradeoff of higher costs to facilitate recovery within that timeframe. Details surrounding RTO, recovery point objective (RPO), and other objectives are often included in an organization’s statement of goals at the start of disaster recovery planning.

Cut Costs with Disaster Recovery

There are substantial benefits directly connected to working with managed service providers. They include:

Predictable Costs

Managed IT services work on fixed cost models. You know precisely what you’ll be spending each month, helping you to budget. This allows you to stay ahead of your expenses and know exactly what’s coming your way.

A Focused IT Team

Managed IT services don’t have to replace the IT team you already have. Both can work alongside each other for the best results.

Your internal IT team has some of the most important jobs to do with your business. They know your company better than anyone, which means they should be focused on the essential tasks.
All too often, internal IT teams get bogged down with minutiae. Working with managed IT services allows your internal IT team to optimize your business and focus on the tasks that really matter.

Lower Infrastructure Costs

This is a saving that often gets overlooked. Technology changes every year, which typically means one of two things for businesses. Companies are either stuck working with outdated infrastructure or are burdened with significant expenses of updating.

A managed IT services company will help you stay on top of s infrastructure costs. These companies shoulder the burden of constantly updating their technology, so your business doesn’t have to. You’ll get all the same technological advances but without having to pay a fortune.

Limited Downtime

Here’s the big one — downtime is one of the most significant financial hazards when operating a business. When some of your operations are out of action, it causes disruptions throughout your entire workflow. The more predictable and shorter the downtime, the better your business will function.

So, what should you look for in a managed services provider?

Boost Productivity & Compliance Efforts

The key to any disaster recovery plan involves effective execution. After all, even the best planning can hit a snag if you don’t have the right personnel on board. This means assigning specific roles and responsibilities within your team.

Assigning multiple personnel to specific roles is beneficial in many ways. For instance, having several employees capable of handling the same task provides a certain level of helpful redundancy in the face of a natural or man-made disaster. Such redundancies also ensure that at least one team member is qualified and capable of carrying out their assigned task. This ensures no gaps in disaster recovery planning if someone goes on sick leave or is away on vacation.

Disaster recovery is especially important for organizations legally required to follow industry regulations like FINRA and HIPAA. These organizations, which range from healthcare providers to government entities and financial firms, can ill afford to fall outside regulatory compliance even in the event of a disaster.

Having a plan to deal with the unexpected should be at the top of any organization’s to-do list. Disaster recovery provides businesses with an effective set of tools designed to ensure business continuity, even in the face of an otherwise-debilitating disaster.

Get in touch with ProServ Business Systems today and let us help implement a disaster recovery plan for your St Joseph business.