Posted by Matt Spada on Tue, Sep 07, 2010
In honor of National Preparedness Month, Agility is recapping our 52 Tips for 2010 program, with a tip each day throughout the month of September available on the Agility Recovery blog. If you would like to receive future tips (one email per week), please sign up here.
Pay it forward.
Prepare your business financially for long-term interruptions. Encourage direct payroll deposits for all staff in the event that mail is either interrupted or employees are not reachable due to displacement. Business owners should also decide on the levels of accessible cash required to maintain business operations and be able to provide cash advances to employees in dire need.
If you have additional questions or would like to talk with a recovery professional about your business continuity needs visit www.agilityrecovery.com or call 866-364-9696.
Posted by Matt Spada on Tue, Sep 07, 2010
In honor of National Preparedness Month, Agility is recapping our 52 Tips for 2010 program, with a tip each day throughout the month of September available on the Agility Recovery blog. If you would like to receive future tips (one email per week), please sign up here.
Always evolve.
A recovery plan is not meant to be written, filed away and then forgotten. Review your plan at least quarterly to ensure your recovery preparations are keeping pace with the changing needs of your business. Every time your IT network and hardware change, update your plan. Every time there is an organizational change or you hire new people, update your plan to reflect any changes in responsibilities and contact information. Your company is always evolving, and your recovery plan should keep pace.
If you have additional questions or would like to talk with a recovery professional about your business continuity needs visit www.agilityrecovery.com or call 866-364-9696.
Posted by Matt Spada on Fri, Sep 03, 2010
In honor of National Preparedness Month, Agility is recapping our 52 Tips for 2010 program, with a tip each day throughout the month of September available on the Agility Recovery blog. If you would like to receive future tips (one email per week), please sign up here.
Hold the line.
Small disruptions can cripple a business. And communications are typically the most severely impacted. Evaluate your ability to restore network communications prior to an interruption. Consider solutions that redirect phone lines and provide automated answering services in the event your network becomes compromised. Setting up remote links (VPNs to a data center) and phone solutions (automated attendants or custom call flows) in advance can save you valuable time and resources during a recovery. Industry jargon calls this "pre-engineering." We call it smart continuity planning.
If you have additional questions or would like to talk with a recovery professional about your business continuity needs visit www.agilityrecovery.com or call 866-364-9696.
Posted by Matt Spada on Thu, Sep 02, 2010
In honor of National Preparedness Month, Agility is recapping our 52 Tips for 2010 program, with a tip each day throughout the month of September available on the Agility Recovery blog. If you would like to receive future tips (one email per week), please sign up here.
Roll Call
Do not assume your employees will be available after a disaster. Try to anticipate their availability during certain scenarios and plan accordingly. For example, during severe pandemics, businesses potentially face 40 percent absenteeism in the workforce due to employee illness and children unable to attend school. How would your business continue operations with 40% absenteeism?
For more information, and helpful resources, download our report "Pandemics: What Every Business Needs to Know and Do."
If you have additional questions or would like to talk with a recovery professional about your business continuity needs visit www.agilityrecovery.com or call 866-364-9696.
Posted by Matt Spada on Wed, Sep 01, 2010
In honor of National Preparedness Month, Agility is recapping our 52 Tips for 2010 program, with a tip each day throughout the month of September available on the Agility blog. If you would like to receive future tips (one email per week), please sign up here.
Who do you depend on?
Now is the perfect opportunity to talk to the businesses and organizations that your company relies on. These could include vendors, suppliers, partners or customers. Take time to evaluate their recovery capabilities following a disaster. Can you count on them to be up and running, back in business as usual, or do they need to work on their own disaster recovery plan? There's no better time than the present to ensure that both of you are prepared, increasing the odds of your mutual success.
Remember, you're only as strong as your weakest link.
If you have additional questions or would like to talk with a recovery professional about your business continuity needs visit www.agilityrecovery.com or call 866-364-9696.
Posted by Matt Spada on Fri, Aug 20, 2010
With our headquarters in Charlotte, NC, Agility Recovery is just far enough north to get a few freak snow or ice storms each year, but still south enough to have limited snow/ice removal infrastructure compared to what's available in other parts of the country.
As a result, a few times each year Agility has delay the opening of our main office (as directed by our disaster recovery plan) and some employees ultimately work from home. To spread the word of our delayed opening, our CEO Bob Boyd uses Agility's own Alert Notification system - to send text and email messages directly to our mobile phones. As you may know, this Alert Notification system is a standard feature of myAgility (included with every ReadySuite package).
Here's some more information on myAgility:
To ensure our ReadySuite members’ needs are met and our resources remain current, we have created a simple online planning tool called myAgility, the backbone of our ReadySuite solution. Through myAgility, organizations may store, view and update their pertinent recovery-planning information using a secure, password-protected Web portal. Anytime. Anywhere.
MYAGILITY FEATURES
- Specify resource needs at time of recovery
- Develop an internal communication strategy
- Develop contact databases for easy communication via the Alert Notification System
- Input, update and store fixed-asset inventory information
- Upload and store critical documents such as insurance policies, product warranties, data back-up procedures and more
myAgility was designed with our members in mind. Get to know your customized portal today. Becoming familiar with the tools and resources available will minimize your downtime should you have an interruption to your business.
For more information, call us at 866.364.9696 or email us.
Posted by Matt Spada on Fri, Jun 04, 2010
As part of our comprehensive disaster recovery planning services, Agility Recovery Solutions sends out a free weekly tip through email. If you would like to receive these tips, please sign up here.
Week 5: Strengthen your plan via testing.
Testing annually is the crux to creating and preserving a viable recovery plan. Test every aspect of your recovery plan, from internal and external communications to regaining power to rebuilding networks. Take the insight gained during this exercise to make your plan stronger, so that when an event does occur your business will recover smoothly and as efficiently as possible.
Week 6: Ease into testing.
When testing your recovery plan for the first time, simplicity is key. Build out an annual testing strategy and gradually add layers of complexity to your test program each year.
Start by reviewing your written recovery plan with leaders within your company. Walk through a mock disaster scenario and review the responsibilities of key personnel. Once you've established a comfort level, then move on to testing technology, server recovery, and communications.
Week 7: Lay your cards on the table.
Every test of your recovery plan is a chance to improve it. For your first test, you can find great value in a "Tabletop Exercise." This usually consists of a day-long meeting with the employees that make up your disaster recovery team. The goal is to simulate each of the steps taken during a recovery in order to test the plan, identify shortcomings, and help employees practice their recovery responsibilities.
A tabletop test can be a great way to test your plan without any cost at all. Once your team is confident in their responsibilities and your plan, you can begin adding hands-on elements to your tests.
Week 8: Don't be Afraid to Fail.
It's a common misconception that your continuity plan can fail a test exercise, when in reality the only failed test is the one you don't perform. A test exercise is a great way to validate the strengths and expose the weaknesses of your plan while providing valuable practice for employees to prepare for a real recovery. Remind your management team early and often that a test exercise is meant to find "failures" now, so they become "successes" during a recovery.
If you have additional questions or would like to talk with a recovery professional about your business continuity needs visit www.agilityrecovery.com or call 866-364-9696.
Posted by Matt Spada on Thu, May 13, 2010
As part of our comprehensive disaster recovery planning services, Agility Recovery Solutions sends out a free weekly tip through email. If you would like to receive these tips, please sign up here.
Week 1: Keep it simple.
Be realistic about who and what you will need during a recovery. There is no sense in trying to bring everyone back to work and have all systems back up if you can survive on less; especially in a short-term recovery. Identify your critical people, teams and define your business critical systems. These should be the focus and your top priority in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. Keep it simple. Simple works.
Week 2: Think about relationships.
Operations and supply chains are reliant upon external relationships, particularly if you're a small or mid sized business. Take an active interest in the disaster recovery plans of your vendors and partners to ensure your business will not be effected if a supplier suffers a disaster or interruption. If your vendors fail, it increases the chance your business will also fail during a recovery situation. You're only as strong as your weakest link.
Week 3: Plan ahead for evacuation.
Businesses located in disaster prone areas (such as hurricane, tornado, ice storm and earthquake zones) should develop an evacuation plan directing employees to a safe and pre-established area, and then recover business operations in the same location. You will have employees on-hand to begin working again, rather than spending days or weeks trying to locate them.For more information on creating your evacuation plan, visit Ready.gov.
Week 4: Know your generator needs.
"If the power goes out, we'll get a generator." It sounds so simple, but it's never as simple as it seems.Like most things, preparation is the key. Where will you place a generator? Do you need permission from your landlord or building management company to run cables through the building? What are the specifications of your electrical circuit - volts, amps, phase?
If you have additional questions or would like to talk with a recovery professional about your business continuity needs visit www.agilityrecovery.com or call 866-364-9696.
