Why Organisation Need an IT Disaster Recovery Plan?

Why The Need for a Disaster Recovery Plan?

These are the essential requirements for the provision of a DR Plan.

Preserve Life Safety and Survival of Organization

The most significant need for an organization to have a DR Plan is to ensure the safety of the employees and the survival of the organization from a disaster. Such a plan can only be achieved through advanced planning and preparation by all stakeholders.

Minimize Severe Losses to an Organization

Depending on the nature of the work performed, an organization may lose a considerable amount of money for every hour of downtime. Typically, Figure below shows the downtime results in the loss of revenue, customer goodwill and loss of market share.

For example, an IT downtime will result in the inability to deliver services to customers in time. A prolonged downtime would reduce the profitability and market value of the organization and ultimately result in business failure.

Increase Dependency on IT

There is a high dependency on IT as the development of technology continues to enhance the delivery of business. With increased dependency on IT to deliver continuous business services, 24-by-7 availability of IT support systems has become a fundamental requirement. Innovative methods to support these business operations are being created and implemented. Some of these practices, such as remote connection to offices for continuous connectivity, may make an organization vulnerable to external attacks and more susceptible to disasters.

Raise in Customer Expectation

In today business environment, the survival of the business depends on its recovery and its availability within the shortest possible time. In the event of a disaster impacting the IT setup, all the important functions that are dependent on IT, such as communication and business transactions, will be hampered. Most organizations can sustain itself in the absence of such critical IT operations for a day or two. However, any prolonged interruption can result in severe and irreparable losses to the organization; sometimes resulting in the organization becoming insolvent. The organization can implement a DR Plan or program, to ensure the recovery of its IT operations in the shortest possible time, and prevent any potential calamities.

Meet Contractual Obligations

Organizations that are directly involved in supplying products and services to customers or clients are usually bound by a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to carry out their obligations. These agreements seek assurance from the suppliers that, in the face of disasters, the supply of deliverables will continue unhindered. When a commitment to high availability and quality service is made, it takes special effort on the part of the supplier to fulfill the SLAs. A key component of such efforts is to design, develop and implement an effective and efficient DR Plan.

Maintain Effective Coordination of Recovery Tasks

In a DR Plan, list the recovery procedures to ensure that the organization resumes its operations within the shortest possible time. Because these procedures are defined by the occurrence of disasters, the entire DR Plan reflects the effectiveness and preparedness of the organization to meet the challenges of disasters. A pre-planned list of the recovery procedures, therefore, helps to facilitate faster and effective recovery IT operations and services during a disaster event.

Avoid Disaster

DR Planning often leads to the improvement of processes and IT systems that make those processes and systems more resilient. Events that would result in a severe business interruption before you had the DR Plan in place become, in many cases, just a minor event after you enact the plan.

Upkeep Due Diligence and Due Care

There are very few organizations have never experienced an incident or event that resulted in the loss of data. Many organizations are not aware that failing to secure their information and protect data against loss can be a serious offense. If an organization fails to exercise this due care, it could face civil or criminal.

A Manager’s Guide to Implementing Your IT Disaster Recovery Plan

Reference

Extracted from "Chapter 4: Project Management: Step 1: Establish the Need for DR Planning"

Goh, M. H. (2016). A Manager's Guide to Implementing Your IT Disaster Recovery Plan. Business Continuity Management Specialist Series (2nd ed.). Singapore: GMH Pte Ltd.

More Information About IT DR Blended Learning

To know more about our blended learning program and when the next course is scheduled, feel free to contact our friendly course consultant colleagues via sales.ap@bcm-institute.org. They are the BL-DR-3 Blended Learning DR-300 IT Disaster Recovery Implementer and the BL-DR-5 Blended Learning DR-5000 IT Disaster Recovery Expert Implementer.