It’s often hard to see the value in creating – let alone updating – a business continuity plan you may never need. That’s why many BCPs sit on shelves for years, becoming more irrelevant every day. However, in today’s high-tech environment, the cost of creating and maintaining a BCP is eclipsed exponentially by the potential costs of a disastrous event, outage, or breach. Keep in mind that a BCP can offer much more than a framework for disaster response. If done right, it can deliver benefits to your business during uptime as well as downtime.
Benefits of Updating Your BCP
Many benefits accrue to your business by updating your BCP. Here are five good reasons to review and revise:
1.
Protect
your data.
Updating your BCP will force changes in processes or solutions that will ensure
your customers’ and partners’ private information is protected every day and in
the event of a disaster. These measures also will protect your proprietary
information or intellectual property and keep your company compliant with
industry and geographic regulations.
2.
Solidify
roles, responsibilities, and priorities.
Reviewing your BCP enables you to evaluate and assign (or reassign) roles and
responsibilities to current departments and team members. Be sure to document
processes for backup administrators in the primary stakeholders are
unavailable.
3.
Help
identify risk.
Work with your risk
management team to reassess risks, uncover new vulnerabilities, and identify any
need for new processes or procedures to keep your data, employees, and business
safe.
4. Demonstrate investment in your company, customers, and employees.
Your BCP protects the livelihoods (and possibly the lives) of your employees. That alone is worth doing, but a current BCP does more, protecting your customers and partners as well. Ultimately, revising your BCP is an investment in your company’s future and your reputation as a responsible corporate citizen.
5.
Drive
competitive advantage.
As the saying goes, “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how
you respond.” A well-planned disaster response and quick recovery – especially
if a breach or disaster affects your industry or geographic area – can give you
an advantage over competitors. Additionally, your BCP and/or approach to risk
management could work in your favor in earning customers, clients, or partners.
How Cox Business Can Help
To ensure the success of your BCP, layer on solutions from a reputable partner like Cox Business. The Business Continuity Package from Cox Business provides Business Internet and Fiber Internet customers with a multilayered defense against downtime and data loss, including:
- Backup LTE wireless Internet to support critical business processes and applications
- Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to protect against utility disruptions
- Cloud Backup and Data Recovery for the most cost-efficient and effective backup solution
- MalBlock with Remote Client to safeguard your network from online threats
- Net Assurance backup internet access to ensure you stay connected
- Endpoint Protect to secure your internet-enabled devices
Being Prepared Pays Off
Whether human error, cyberattack, or a natural disaster, catastrophe can strike at any time – it’s all about being prepared. No matter the size and scale of your company, these incidents can negatively impact your core functions, cause significant financial loss, and damage your company’s reputation. Protecting your data, people, and company are the primary goals of developing a BCP. However, disaster preparedness processes and solutions add business value in many other ways – even if disaster never strikes.
