Today more than ever, data is valuable to businesses. In our digital world, data is the key to success. It helps to create more targeted marketing, build better products, and predict future trends.
We all want to use it to reach more customers. That’s why email affiliate marketing is on the rise. As well as great service, however, those customers increasingly want to know that their data is safe and secure
For these reasons it’s essential that businesses make sure that data is protected. Organisations need to have the best security systems in place. Security attacks increased 31% between 2020 and 2021. But attacks are also becoming more deadly. Hackers are discovering more and more ways to breach firewalls.
Aside from the security issues, what about accidents and natural disasters? For example, let’s imagine that your office burns down and you lose a good chunk of your data. Of course, you’ll need insurance you can trust. But even that can’t remove all of the damage this sort of event can do to a business.
But what could have been done to minimise the effects of these disasters? Well, if your business had carried out Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning (CDRP), you would have been much more prepared for these sorts of events. But what is CDRP? Read on to find out!
What is a Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan?
As the name suggests, Continuity and Disaster Planning involves the creation of a strategy for dealing with events beyond your control. One only needs to look at global events in recent years to see the need for a CDRP. Events happen without warning and can have real repercussions if businesses are not properly prepared.
Unexpected disasters can completely derail a business. Yet, despite this, many businesses fail to have a proper CDRP in place. Let’s look at 7 practices that can help save your business a lot of trouble in the future.
1. Assess Your Business Operations
The day-to-day running of your organisation will involve many different processes and systems. You may have already invested in technology such as a cutting edge phone system for business. If you don’t secure your data, however, this investment could be for nothing.
Look over your business and ask yourself, which processes are crucial for your business to run? Do you have areas where failure could result in public liability due to injury or damage? Each process will rely on data, so in examining your processes, you’ll also examine your data. By identifying the most important aspects of your organisation, you can better prepare for the worse-case scenario.
It’s important that you can ensure synergy between different departments. All teams should be made aware of your CDRP. Gather together different team leaders from your business. Use video if you are in separate locations, there are plenty of Zoom alternatives. Ask them to consider the following questions:
- If a certain operation failed, would day-to-day work be able to continue?
- Are you handling data that could put customers at risk if exposed?
- Are appropriate measures in place to deal with any disasters that occur?
- What are the cost implications of disruption?
2. Identify Your Risks
A risk assessment is a crucial part of CDRP and protecting data. It offers an opportunity to anticipate future disasters that could occur and their effects on your business. Here are some points to bear in mind when carrying out your risk assessment.
There is a wide range of potential risks that could affect both operations and data. They could be the result of human error, system failure, or criminal activity. A systematic review of your operations and processes can help identify things that could go wrong.
3. Assess the Risks and develop mitigations
Not all problems are equal, however. Some will have greater impacts than others. Some will hit output, others have a cost impact, and some will result in data corruption or loss.
The next step is, therefore, to assess the impact of each risk. You’ll also need to consider the likelihood of each risk occurring. It’s important that you score and document both the impact and likelihood of each risk. It’s the combination of these scores that will enable you to focus attention where it’s needed. A risk that has both a high impact and likelihood will need strong management attention.
What steps can you take to reduce the likelihood of a risk materialising? What measures can you put in place to minimise the effects of a disaster? The actions needed will vary greatly depending on the nature of the risk. This could involve upgrading your security software to protect against data breaches.
And don’t forget your people. You wouldn’t skimp on communication skills training but you might need to give training in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) the same priority.
4. Backup of systems and data
Imagine that a key system fails. What would you do? If you have carried out risk planning properly, you’ll have a backup plan.
More and more businesses are moving to cloud processing. The good news here is that you should expect your cloud provider to have first class recovery processes in place. If their processing system fails, they can switch to another facility, sometimes without any impact in processing. You might not even spot that there has been a problem.
The same thing applies to your data if a database is corrupted. If you don’t use a 3rd party supplier, the costs of replicating systems and databases, and keeping them up to date, can be very high.
Given recent increases in cyber-crime, you might also look at Cyber liability insurance as additional means of protection. Your risk assessment will help guide your choices. Focus your investment on your critical processes.
5. Ensure Maximum Protection
Here, you’ll need some expert advice. Have you got the best security software for your needs? Firewalls to protect from unwanted intruders, anti-virus and phishing software, encryption, and virus scanning. It can all get a bit overwhelming.
Yet this is of crucial importance. The best disaster recovery systems in the world won’t undo the impact on your customers and your reputation if your data has been stolen. Without a high CSAT customer satisfaction score, you’ll be in trouble.
So, make sure you have the right protection from the outset. Once this is in place, ensure your systems have the latest patches and upgrades. New threats emerge all the time. You should have a patching policy that keeps you up to date.
Don’t forget the human side of security. Make sure your staff is trained to employ best practices in password management and to recognise bogus phone calls, phishing emails, and other threats.
In short, security awareness should be instilled into the culture of your business.
6. Ownership
It’s important that you know who is responsible for each system that you use and for all of the data that you hold. Those are the people who should know the critical areas and understand what protection is in place. Importantly, they will also understand any weaknesses that have been identified and are responsible for signing off any mitigation plans to address these.
All of this will be logged and regularly reviewed. Owners of critical processes and data will be the ones who update the board on their risks and actions. If they feel that further investment is necessary, they will be the ones that champion this.
7. Policy and Procedures
It’s important that the key aspects of your business are documented. Business Continuity policy and procedures are no exception.
You might have expert staff who know exactly what to do when problems occur. But what if they are on sick leave the day a risk impacts? Or what if they leave on short notice and suddenly that experience is lost?
The answer is to ensure that you have disaster recovery and data protection policies and procedures in place. These should describe the detailed steps (both the ‘who’ and the ‘what’) to be taken in the event of problems.
Keep on top of business continuity
Once you’ve put effort into boosting your business continuity, it’s important to keep on top of things. Make sure risks are updated regularly and that senior leaders are actively involved in managing them.
It’s a good idea to hold scenario planning exercises that mimic steps to be taken in the event of a disaster. A problem will be invented, perhaps by your risk team, and presented to the board as a role-playing exercise.They will then have to make decisions, and monitor progress as the scenario develops. This might sound artificial but it can identify all sorts of problems from ownership, software and data backup weaknesses, poor documentation to out of date contact lists.
It can be quite a daunting process, but strong continuity and disaster recovery processes are critical aspects of a modern business. Embedding business continuity and disaster into the culture of your organisation should be a priority.
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