Why many IT teams struggle with disaster planning

For many small- to medium-businesses, there is little concern and little budget for disaster planning, despite the impact it can have. This is surprising when you consider how likely it is that some disasters, such as a cyber attack, will occur.

What is even more surprising is the number of smaller and medium businesses that turn a blind eye to the very real and growing threat of an IT disaster. And as these businesses become increasingly reliant on technology, their exposure to the risks associated with IT increases as well.

In 2018, a typical data breach cost companies US$3.86 million on average, with mean-time-to-identify at 197 days and mean-time-to-contain at 69 days. USA Today recently reported that cyber attacks are also on the rise, which poses a growing threat to all businesses, regardless of their size.

The Impact of This Risk

As we discussed earlier, many managers and owners of small and medium businesses have yet to recognise the risks IT problems pose to their companies. This lack of awareness spills down to their IT teams and manifests in a number of ways, such as knowledge gaps and lack of oversight. It can also specifically impact the disaster recovery plan itself in the following ways:

• An insufficiently fleshed out disaster recovery plan – When a business believes that there will never be a need for an IT disaster recovery plan, it runs the very real risk of having a plan that ticks the right boxes, but is ultimately useless when a disaster strikes and the pressure to restore your business systems as quickly as possible is on.
• Lack of testing – Even with a well-thought-out plan, lack of familiarity will only slow down the recovery process. Therefore, regular failover testing, reporting and health monitoring of your disaster recovery solution is a must.
• Failure to review – Organisational processes evolve and grow over time, but many companies fail to review their disaster recovery plans to account for these changes. In order for a company’s disaster recovery plans to be useful in a time of crisis, they must be kept in line with the company’s current systems.

These problems may not be the first thing a business owner thinks of when they wake up in the morning, but it will no doubt be the only thing on their mind when a disaster strikes.

Be Prepared

To avoid the combined crippling effect of an IT disaster and a poor disaster recovery plan, you need the help of a team with specialist disaster recovery expertise. The Missing Link is an Australian team of IT disaster recovery specialists who are offering a free new tool to assess whether your business is prepared for a disaster. Click here to find out if your business is disaster ready.