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How to stay in business through tough times

As appeared in the Daily Mirror - click here to see

As the battle to stay afloat and profitable in this tough climate continues, it’s crucial that we don’t forget just how important it is to have in place a failsafe plan B in case the unexpected happens.

“In times like these, ensuring your business remains fully operational in the event of a disaster - be that a physical adversity such as a fire, theft or flood or, indeed, an IT crisis such as data loss or complete system failure - is absolutely crucial, ” said Neil Stephenson, CEO of Onyx Group, which specialises in data security and business continuity. “Research shows that businesses who handle crises well, do not only survive but are successful, while those who don’t will, in the worst case, fail and go under.

Neil recommends a number of steps for creating a failsafe business continuity plan. In layman’s terms, that’s advice on how to ensure your business continues to do business in the face of catastrophe…

Understand the potential risk - it’s important that companies understand the nature of the risks they face. Carry out a risk assessment to identify critical areas which would cause the most damage to finances and reputation. Conduct a business impact analysis to ensure you know how functions would be affected by a disaster.

Plan, plan again and plan some more – plan what strategies you would use in the event of a disaster. Calculate downtime costs; determine which are your most critical systems; decide whether these are dependent upon smaller systems; test critical system restores and ensure staff have the relevant knowledge

Test, test, test - a business continuity plan is useless if it has not been tested. Create disaster scenarios to ensure you are ready when disaster strikes and check that you are not overlooking seemingly minor details that could cause major problems. Testing will help you to redefine your plans to better suit your business and improve your chances of success.

To put in place a decent business continuity plan in an easy, stress free way, contact Onyx Group today.