In today’s digital world, businesses and companies are highly dependent on their in-house IT systems or IT service companies. But, when Mother Nature decides to throw a tantrum, IT infrastructure and systems can be damaged.

Natural disasters and other external and unprecedented factors can result in power outages, data center breakdown, data breaches, ransomware or hacker attack, loss or corruption of files, application failures, systems crashing, or in worse case scenarios, total operational shutdown.

Natural disasters can strike anytime. No human can ever prevent Mother Nature’s tantrums. When disasters happen, businesses and their IT infrastructure and systems are greatly affected. This is why it’s necessary to have Business Continuity plans in place for IT service companies.

It has happened to other companies before, and it can happen to you. Here are 10 useful tips to manage business continuity during a crisis and ensure IT resilience.

1. Appoint a Business Continuity and Disaster Management Team

Most IT service companies provide disaster readiness measures along with their services. But, if your IT system is managed in-house, you may need a team for business continuity and risk management to ensure that proper protocol and requirements are in place should a disaster or IT crisis strike.

2. Determine acceptable downtime for each department.

IT crises as simple as internet connection problems can cause downtime. Determine what the acceptable number of unproductive minutes or hours is for every department. Calculate how much productivity is lost for each hour that an employee is offline to know how much loss your company can withstand.

In knowing the acceptable downtime, you can also determine how much time your team has to get the system back in full working order. Answering these concerns will help you map out a business continuity and disaster management plan that actually works.

3. Distinguish risk factors and critical systems.

Where is your IT system most vulnerable? Understand your business parameters and identify risks and vulnerabilities. This will give you the proper information to strengthen your IT infrastructure.

Once you’ve determined your vulnerable areas, you can identify possible disaster scenarios. Enumerate any and every possible crisis that your IT system can encounter so you can properly create a business continuity plan.

4. Learn from the past.

IT disasters have been experienced by some of the world’s biggest corporations in the past. It’s only right that we learn from there.

Is your company at risk of suffering from the same IT crises? If so, look at what they have done to rectify the situation and identify more effective and efficient solutions should the problem occur in your organization. Better yet, find out more effective preventive measures. Think of past events as your case studies.

5. Identify technical requirements for recovery.

You can determine technical requirements needed to sustain productivity during a crisis using the scenarios you’ve identified, as well as the case studies you’ve combed through.

6. Make remote working arrangements.

Arrange for employees to work remotely during crisis situations so that productivity is not hindered while your team is getting things back in order. Have a backup plan in place so that your team can focus on rebuilding and recovering your IT system after a crisis.

7. Implement preventative solutions.

Not all disasters can be prevented. But, putting security systems in place to prevent cyber-attacks and data loss is paramount to any IT infrastructure. IT disasters can be prevented with data security and IT protection measures.

8. Test the solutions.

Testing your solutions will give you an accurate time frame needed in implementing your IT disaster recovery plan. It will also let you see the loopholes in your business continuity and disaster management plan.

Stay updated with current trends and new innovations so that you’re always prepared for potential crises.

9. Orient your employees about your business continuity plan.

Brief your employees about what they need to do during disasters. Give them tips about how they can help prevent these IT crises from happening and protect the company from cyber-attacks.

Get the whole company on board with your preventative measures and business continuity plans so that everyone knows what to do during crisis situations.

10. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.

If you think that your organization needs third-party guidance to ensure the resilience of your IT systems, don’t hesitate to ask for help. IT support companies can be outsourced to build and maintain an IT and data infrastructure for your organization.

Always Be Prepared!

Information Technology is crucial to any business operation, and its breakdown and failure can cause great loss for any company.

Every situation is unique, and crisis varies from one event to another. You can’t predict when and how disasters strike, but you can be prepared. Managing business continuity during a crisis involves a lot of time and effort in creating effective preventive measures and recovery plans.