Why should businesses consider a disaster recovery plan in 2022? There’s a lot to cover before we can answer that question, but it’s a good start to discuss what a disaster recovery plan is. IBM, one of the biggest tech companies in the world, in its Knowledge Center defines disaster recovery as follows: “The objective of a disaster recovery plan is to ensure that you can respond to a disaster or other emergency that affects information systems and minimize the effect on the operation of the business.”
The same page outlines a complete disaster recovery plan which includes goals, plans, how to completely restore an entire system, and how to rebuild a disaster site, among others.
This article will not delve deeper into how IBM details how a disaster recovery plan should be but will instead highlight a very interesting case study on how a disaster recovery plan could have saved a company from a customer experience nightmare.
The company in question is aviation giant Delta Airlines. Back on August 8, 2016, Delta experienced hundreds of canceled flights, thousands of delayed flights, and tens of thousands of frustrated passengers. According to an article in the Delta Airlines News Hub, “a power outage in Atlanta impacted Delta computer systems and operations worldwide.”
Multinational management and technology consulting firm West Monroe Partners, however, in an article argues that Delta could have saved themselves from a massive headache and a lot of money—and, more importantly, saved their customers a lot of pain and suffering—if they just had a disaster recovery plan in place. The article further adds how important a disaster recovery plan is:
“Disasters—large and small—do occur and can have a significant impact on business operations and the reputation of the business. While these types of disasters are insurable under Electronic Data Loss policies, expense reimbursement can never compensate for reputational loss. IT leaders must present thoughtful plans and budget requests to manage risk to their business leaders, so their CEO isn’t the next one filming an apology video.”
If you’re a business owner or CEO, you wouldn’t want to film an apology video to your customers, especially if you can prevent this with a disaster recovery plan. At the beginning of this article, we posed the question, “Why should businesses consider a disaster recovery plan in 2022?” If you want to find out why read on. This is where we take a deep dive into why businesses should consider a disaster recovery plan in 2022.
1. Human beings are not foolproof.
Let’s address the elephant in the room, shall we? Disasters are not always natural or cyber-related. More often than not, downtime can be caused by simple human error. Why? Well, human beings are not foolproof, as we already mentioned. And while we can’t remove human error entirely, we can at the very least take steps to reduce it and ensure that the recovery time is fast. How? By deploying a disaster recovery plan. The great thing about businesses considering a disaster recovery plan this 2022 is that they can ensure that their employees are all on the same page when it comes to handling a disaster. This can also help mitigate the risk of a disaster stemming from a human error.
2. Threats, unfortunately—especially in 2022—are real.
Needless to say, the malicious threats to a company’s data come in all shapes and sizes. We already discussed human error, we already mentioned natural disasters; this is where we discuss just how harmful to your data cybercriminals are. In 2018, one of the top cyber threats is ransomware, which wreaked havoc on companies’ IT systems and has cost businesses of all sizes hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in losses. And experts project that ransomware is going to wreak even more havoc this year. This is one of the biggest reasons why businesses should consider a disaster recovery plan in 2022.
3. Every company, regardless of size, should protect its data at all costs.
For many companies, their data is the business’s lifeblood. Data that they generate, collect, and store. So, protecting this precious data should be a company’s biggest priority. A disaster recovery plan ensures that your data isn’t only safe from an attack or outage, it is handled securely.
4. And last but not least, downtime can cost companies huge losses
Downtime can happen to any company, at any time, and for any reason. And for many businesses, naturally, downtime means lost revenue. However, the cost of downtime goes beyond the losses in terms of money. Downtime can cause loss of your business’s reputation and, by extension, loss of customers. In a nutshell, the longer you are offline, the more damage to your company—and this is not an exaggeration. The last—but not the least important reason why businesses should consider a disaster recovery plan in 2022.
How Can NST Help?
Nobody can doubt the importance of a DRP for a business. It is an essential document that every business should possess. To draw up your business continuity and disaster recovery plans, consult a service provider with proven expertise. Choose one with a track record for reliability and accountability for safeguarding your employees, assets, sensitive data, and core operations.
At NST, our team of IT experts are well-versed in their respective work and will make sure that you get back in business in no time with minimal loss to the operations of your business. To learn more about disaster management and recovery operations, contact us today.