Databarracks releases practical advice for improving resilience from BC and DR experts
Disaster recovery (DR) service provider Databarracks launched The Business Continuity Podcast last year - a straightforward, jargon-free discussion with people who deal with disasters for a living. The podcast aims to provide practical advice for IT leaders looking to secure their businesses against disasters and IT downtime. Today, to coincide with the final episode of season one airing, Databarracks has released the golden nuggets of advice from their interviewees this series.
Peter Groucutt, managing director at Databarracks, comments: "Our aim for the podcast was to create something genuinely insightful for members of the business continuity industry. The insights and experiences of our guests, who come from organisations such as BP, The Economist and The London Fire Brigade, are extremely useful for those who are looking to create a BC strategy, but are unsure of where to start.
"As part of the show, we asked every expert we interviewed one critical question: "What is something organisations could do in the next 24 hours to improve their resilience against disruption?". And, while answers obviously differed slightly from person to person, they largely fell into two categories: testing and communication.
"The overwhelming advice from the majority of interviewees was to get your senior management or crisis management team around a table and take a day, or even half a day, to run through some likely disasters and how you'd react to them. By simply talking through this process a few times, and documenting the responses, you're inadvertently creating a very rough risk register and disaster recovery plan. This is then something you can refer to in the event of a real disaster, which will speed up the recovery process and increase confidence in your DR capabilities.
"Communication formed the second main argument. Pushing out timely and accurate information to your workforce during a disaster helps to mitigate disruption, minimise threat to human safety, and promote behaviours that preserve continuity. Understanding your specific responsibilities in a disaster, and having a formalised plan as to who should be calling who and when, is vital for a smooth recovery.
"And again it doesn't have to cost a fortune. It could be as simple as making sure that you've got a few key telephone numbers; your key clients, your staff, your suppliers, that you can communicate with. You could build a simple call tree which represents a series of phone calls cascading down a predetermined hierarchy, or as one expert pointed out you could utilise private chat function via social media as a means of communication.
Groucutt concludes: "We wanted to illustrate with the BCPcast that good continuity practices don't have to be complicated, expensive or overly time-consuming. They are not limited to large enterprises with expansive budgets and a dedicated BCP team – there are processes and techniques that can be adopted by everyone."
Read the ebook here.
Listen to season one of the BCPcast here.