What would you do if…
- Your office equipment failed or you had no power for a week?
- Your phone stopped ringing because a cable or VOIP was down?
- You couldn’t access your e-mails or cloud based files because you had a problem with your network or IP provider?
Losing the ability to operate a business in the event of a minor, let alone major disaster can have serious consequences that in turn can impact on sales, reputation and cash flow.
Despite this, few businesses have contingency plans for possible disaster scenarios or have a back-up in place for such situations.
If you rely heavily on office-based equipment such as computers and printers it makes sense to also have laptop and access to a printer. Separate access to wifi is also useful. If the telephones are down then knowing how to switch calls to VOIP, another phone or a mobile is essential. If you rely on access to desktop or server based files then cloud based systems will give you instant access which may be far quicker than relying on back-up tapes and hard drives. It may be strange but all too often the access codes are stored in a computer that is down.
Laptops, tablets, mobile devices and virtual offices all make it much easier to work remotely but some planning means there can be a seamless transition in the event of a disaster.
Please share your own backup plans and any tips for others to adopt.