Developing a Strong Disaster Recovery Plan for Your Business

Operating a business often entails balancing tight schedules, evolving market dynamics, and shifting consumer requirements. Equally important, though, is ensuring you’re prepared for any potential operational challenges.

Unexpected business disruptions like natural disasters or cybersecurity breaches often take place when least expected – and the statistics speak for themselves:

• Over the past three years alone, around 82% of businesses have experienced unexpected downtime events
• Approximately 20% of all organizations have faced significant IT outages since 2020.
• Surprisingly only a quarter of businesses currently have a disaster management plan in place as of mid-2023.

Even if it appears that the risk of a disruption is minimal, organizations that are not ready for such events can experience significant financial setbacks and harm to their reputation. Creating a disaster management plan is now a critical step – not just a choice – to secure the success of your business.

Core Features of an Effective Disaster Recovery Plan

Crafting a disaster recovery plan for your organization can appear intimidating, mainly when the starting point is unclear. And every business has unique traits that influence the particulars of how a plan is drafted.

Nonetheless, there are fundamental elements that should be integrated into any disaster recovery plan, along with important considerations to bear in mind as you implement the strategy.

Determine Your RPO and RTO

To begin developing a recovery plan following a disaster, the first step is to analyze the risks and disruptions that could affect your business. A crucial part of this assessment involves gaining an understanding of your company’s Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

The RPO essentially measures how much data loss and operational downtime your business can handle. This threshold varies based on your business type and the criticality of the data you manage, with acceptable loss ranging from a few minutes to several hours or in some cases, days.

Conversely, RTO is pivotal in determining the duration your business can endure a major disruption without suffering significant operational and financial repercussions. Once this period is exceeded, your business may be at risk of entering a critical phase, potentially leading to long-term detrimental effects on its financial health.

Establish Staff Roles

Begin by pinpointing all the key players participating in the disaster recovery efforts. This group should encompass your internal team members and any pertinent external partners, such as cloud service providers, a vCISO, or managed IT consultants.

Make sure that every person participating in the recovery operations is completely informed about their duties and how they can be contacted. Also, it’s essential to determine who will be responsible for communicating with customers and other relevant parties in case of an emergency.

Document all IT Assets and Resources

Maintaining a record of all your IT assets and resources is crucial for effective recovery from any major incident. This inventory should cover everything from hardware and software to network infrastructure and other vital business elements.

If any of these components are damaged or lost, a thorough inventory aids in determining the replacement priorities and timelines. It’s also useful for pinpointing your system’s potential security risks or vulnerabilities.

Draft Comprehensive Recovery Procedures

Building a comprehensive plan requires the formulation of various recovery methods, each designed for particular disaster events. These methods need to coordinate with your organization’s Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO), outlining the progression of recovery efforts.

Usually, following a disaster, businesses may encounter situations where their operations are compromised due to reduced capacity or limited resources. Your recovery strategies need to consider these limitations, focusing first on the most essential components of your business.

Additionally, your recovery process might involve external vendors or third-party cloud services. For these situations, it’s crucial to establish clear agreements and protocols to ensure efficient and effective recovery actions.

Implement Data Backup Procedures

A critical component of resuming regulation operations – especially when it comes to ransomware recovery – is having dependable and secure data backups. Each business should evaluate the backup methods that best suit its particular requirements.Depending on the application, this may be an internal function, or could require external vendors like backup-as-a-service providers. This is not only crucial for operational efficiency but also aids in meeting various regulatory and compliance standards, such as those required for a SOC audit.

Having a documented plan is essential. This plan should outline the frequency of backups, the data that is included in each backup, and the storage location. Remember to review and update this plan as the business changes, ensuring it remains compliant with standards like SOC audits.

Don’t Let a Disaster Catch You Off Guard

Managing a business comes with an endless list of priorities. However, preparing your organization for growth involves more than just strategizing for new revenue streams. Dedicating time to craft and routinely reassess your disaster recovery plan is vital. It helps reduce downtime, safeguard sensitive information, and helps build trust with your customers and suppliers.

Author Bio Information

Nazy Fouladirad is President and COO of Tevora, a global leading cybersecurity consultancy. She has dedicated her career to creating a more secure business and online environment for organizations across the country and world. She is passionate about serving her community and acts as a board member for a local nonprofit organization.