What happens to your business if the internet is down? What if data is compromised? How does your business handle supply chain delays? These are among the biggest threats to your company’s business continuity. When we use the term business continuity, we mean exactly what it sounds like; it is the plan to deal with challenging situations so the organization can continue to function with limited interruption.

What are the biggest threats to business continuity management?

Ransomware Threat

The exponential growth of the ransomware threat is one of the biggest threats to business continuity. Hackers are demanding ransom gets paid before releasing data to a company. They will often place a timeline on the payment and threaten to release information to the public if their demands are not met. Not only is the data release a threat to a business's reputation, it can cost more than the business can afford. Often in the thousands or even millions of dollars, businesses can be shut down simply from a ransomware attack.

Natural Disaster

Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, snowstorms, and wind storms are among the natural disasters that can cause an interruption to business. A hail storm can destroy vehicles on car lots. Snowstorms can keep people at home, unable to go to work or restaurants, or anywhere. How your business handles these situations is key to the survival of the business.

It takes planning ahead to make sure your employees are taken care of and have a plan to resume business when it is safe to do so. They need to hear from you what the plan is if systems go down and/or if the building is damaged in case of natural disaster.

Utilizing the cloud rather than on-site servers is a good way to ensure data and systems are secure. This may likely reduce the downtime of your business.

Supply Chain Problems

If there is one lesson we’ve learned through the pandemic, it’s that we’re connected to people around the world. When microprocessors, for example, aren’t processed in factories in Asia because of the pandemic, there is a worldwide ripple effect.

People are having trouble buying cars because the smallest parts are not available.

A friend went to a dealership and the salesman said, “Well, I can sell you a car but you can’t drive it. We don’t have the chip to make it go.” Yikes!

As a result, the dealers are selling used cars at higher prices. The prices are higher because the demand is higher. They’re also having to figure out how to communicate with customers who want new cars that aren’t available due to supply chain issues. It’s a threat to their businesses that, if not resolved, could cause major damage to the industry.

It’s these types of disasters that can shut down a business.

Business Continuity Management

As part of the Netready IT Business Continuity Management, we develop a business continuity plan. It’s essentially a disaster plan for the stakeholders and key functions of your business. If a natural or manmade disaster occurs, it is the blueprint for what happens, in step by step format.

  • What happens if the servers go down? Who is responsible to let employees know what is happening? Who will bring the servers back online?
  • What happens if there is a supply chain slowdown? How are business operations handled? Who communicates to clients, customers, patients, and employees?
  • What if there is an internet outage? What happens to VoIP? How are calls made? Who lets clients know what is happening? What do employees do while the problem is addressed?

It is these types of scenarios that we discuss as part of business continuity management.

Netready IT offers Business Continuity Management because we want your business to be prepared in case of disaster. We want your stakeholders to know they just need to make one call to us to handle getting systems back online. While we can’t predict the supply chain, we can create systems to track inventory and make other tech-related adjustments as needed to keep your business moving forward.