A disaster recovery plan (DRP) can save businesses from failure and prepare yours for the unexpected. While often confused, a disaster plan for businesses focuses on how business processes can be restored within a certain time frame, whereas business continuity keeps businesses running in the event of a disaster. The key difference between the two is when the plan takes effect.
Business continuity plans initiate during a disaster, and focus on keeping everything running and functional. A disaster recovery plan focuses on recovery after the disaster has occurred and the subsequent return to normalcy. Disaster plans focus specifically on restoring data and connectivity and aim to answer the question, “How do we recover from this disaster?” While they overlap, they are distinctly different, which results in a separate focus for each.
This article will briefly discuss creating a disaster plan within the wider framework of a business continuity plan, and why businesses need both in the case of an emergency.
Guide to creating a business continuity plan
A business continuity plan (BCP) ensures the capability of an organization to recover from and maintain the vital day-to-day activities, should your business find itself in an emergency or disaster.
What is included in a business continuity plan?
A business continuity plan helps a business continue working, in the event of a disaster. It should include all aspects of your business’s current processes, and determine which areas are most vulnerable and valuable to your business. For instance, IT, a loss or damage to machinery, or a supply chain interruption are all key parts to a business that must be identified in a business continuity plan.
Developing your plan usually consists of:
- Conduct a business impact analysis. This will help determine what the consequences of a certain disaster are and provides information necessary to determining a recovery.
- Determine critical business functions. This will include a process of identifying what functions are necessary to keep your business moving during a disaster.
- Create your business continuity team and ensure they are instructed in critical business functions to keep things running smoothly.
- Train your team. Complete training at least once a year going forward, so the business is prepared for a disaster and everyone understands the process. Additionally, training helps keep the disaster plan adaptable and up-to-date with current employees, regulations, or anything else that may have changed since the previous training session.
Ultimately, all personnel should be made aware of their responsibilities and roles in carrying out their part of the plan. For instance, it’s extremely important that IT employees know their duties in case of an emergency, as businesses rely heavily on IT departments. Until the IT department is up and running normally, disaster plans should include ways for the IT department to run manually to keep business moving.
Resources Required
Preparedness planning is for all businesses, no matter their size. Resources in a business continuity plan may include:
- Inventory
- Employees
- Office space
- Technology
- Electronic records, including virtual and physical copies of records
- Third party services
- Production facilities and any necessary equipment
A business continuity plan includes which resources are most important and how to replace resources as quickly as possible when disaster strikes.
Today’s Applications of a BCP
Your business continuity plan should include written plans for all sorts of disasters, from hurricanes to pandemics. Consider the current COVID-19 pandemic: Many businesses needed to figure out how to accommodate their employees working remotely, while keeping a business functioning.
As many businesses may not have considered a pandemic when creating their BCP, they struggled to keep their business moving during the transition. Going forward your BCP should include a model for pandemics that will comply with government requirements and focus on safe practices for employees.
Guide to Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
Your disaster recovery plan is what assists your business as it transitions from your alternative business practices, whatever they may be, to normal business practices, once the disaster has passed. Disaster recovery is usually implemented after a disaster, such as a storm or a massive power outage.
Consider if your business was impacted by a tornado. Your disaster recovery plan would specifically focus on how your employees could return to a workplace with resources necessary to continue to work as they were before the disaster occured.
What are the major elements of a typical disaster recovery plan?
Here are six major elements pertaining to every disaster recovery plan. Each plan and business is unique, but these elements help a DRP work effectively, no matter the disaster.
- Create a team
Your disaster recovery plan team should develop, maintain, and oversee a DRP. They should have back-ups, both virtual and physical, of each employee’s records and contact information, so employees can be kept informed of the specific disaster plan and steps to be taken. Each employee, whether part of the DRP team or not, should be kept up to date with current plans and protocol to ensure safety, and that effective communication is maintained.
- Outline potential damages
When the DRP is written, the specific danger posed by each kind of disaster should be clearly outlined. For instance, the damage from a power outage is going to be different than the damage from a hurricane. A good disaster plan will define the potential danger from each disaster, outlining the steps necessary to return to normal operations as quickly as possible in each scenario.
- Determine critical aspects to the business
What is critical to maintaining business functions? Focusing on that will help better formulate a disaster plan. Your business’s full operating procedures will take a while to recover, but in the short-term, complete processes that need to be done in order for the business to survive, such as payroll. As a DRP helps return to normalcy, focusing on technology is imperative.
Logistics
What support will your business need to get it back on its feet? Here at Speciality Fuel Services, we offer fuel delivery to keep your business running, despite whatever disasters may come your way. From fueling your generators to vehicles, our services are vital to your DRP.
- Specify storage procedures
Determine who handles the back-ups for IT, tax returns, employee files, and more. Everything should be appropriately backed-up continuously, in case of emergency. Having back-ups placed off-site can help your disaster plan function appropriately and ensure the business returns to normalcy swiftly.
Test and maintain DPR
How often the DPR is tested is up to each individual business, but as disasters occur, it’s necessary to ensure the DPR covers a wide variety of disasters and plans. Especially as technology and business processes evolve, the DPR should be updated to stay current and effective and applicable.
Conclusion
A disaster plan is a critical business function that ensures rapid return to regular business operations as well as a recovery of vital business data. Used in conjunction with a business continuity plan, your DRP helps your business return to normalcy within a shorter time frame and keeps your business functioning, despite unplanned and unexpected disasters.