Coming off the heels of Hurricane Florence and Michael devastating the South East, it is important to look ahead when it comes to protecting your small business.

There are many ways your business is at risk. Having a proper business continuity plan will allow you and your employees to continue “business-as-usual” following any sort of disaster or data breach.

First, let’s define business continuity. Below is a definition we like from Travelers:

Business continuity is a proactive plan to avoid and mitigate risks associated with a disruption of operations. It details steps to be taken before, during and after an event to maintain the financial viability of an organization.

This covers a wide variety of situations, but the two we would like to focus on are disaster recovery and data protection.

Disaster Recovery

As mentioned before, natural disasters are a part of life. They can devastate homes and businesses alike. Disaster recovery is a very important aspect to any continuity plan. How does your team and your organization react after a disaster?

You will need to be able to work on any device, from anywhere in a safe environment. A proper plan will include the procedure documentation, the correct devices and software, and a VPN. All of which your local IT company will assist in setting up and managing.

Data Protection

Your data, and customer data, is one of the most important pieces of any small business. Actively strategizing to protect yourself in the event of stolen property, lost devices, and system failures will set you up for success even in the event of a breach.

An assessment should be step one in this process. You need to know what you have and how likely it is to fail. After that, you can more easily set up fail-safes and backups to adequately protect your business and your client’s information.

With a proper business continuity plan, you will reduce the risks and costs of business interruptions. At Wincourse your data is safe and continually available in a secure data center, we will also assist in the disaster recovery piece, allowing you to work from anywhere, anytime, on any device.

Be sure to partner with a technology firm that specializes in SMB to help you plan for the future.