(ThyBlackMan.com) Doing business, day after day, without any interruption is by no means guaranteed. Things can and do go wrong which can threaten a business and bring it to its knees, whether it’s a natural disaster or a man-made one.
For this reason, companies need to be prepared, and employees have to understand protocol when operations are threatened. Here’s what to do in the case of an emergency or disaster.
Step 1: Prepare Your Emergency Team
You don’t have to train everybody in your organization to prepare for a disaster: just a few people who will organize the response. Select some of your managers of individuals and organize them into a committee which will plan the official response to any data breaches or IT infrastructure disasters that could afflict your 
company. The committee needs to thoroughly prepare for the risks, understand the ways in which the company is under threat and find alternative solutions to the challenges.
One person should be in charge of your emergency response who has the authority to get things done. This emergency manager needs to be able to have a reliable decision-making process and understand the objectives of your organization.
Step 2: Prepare A Plan For Each Contingency
Planning for each contingency is difficult, given how many things can potentially go wrong in business. But your risk manager should have a good idea about the things that are most likely to go wrong in any given business context.
The next step is to find out solutions to those potential problems so that they can be implemented immediately when the time comes. For instance, if your business relies heavily on data, it’s a good idea to investigate cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery with DRaaS by Infrascale or something similar. Backing up and recovering data is essential for the success of knowledge-based companies.
Create a list of all of the people you need to contact in the case of an emergency, including contact name and phone numbers, any 24-hour service that they might offer and any additional information about when a contact should be contacted.
Step 3: Review
The final step is to examine your business plan to make sure that it asks all the right questions. For instance, does your plan establish emergency leave arrangements for your employees? Do you allow for flexible working and work hours if your offices aren’t available for a period of time? Do you have any plans in place to prevent a cyber attack in the future?
It’s also worth asking whether you have sufficient resources to deal with a problem, should one arise. What additional measures need to be taken to protect your IT infrastructure and do you have backups in place? Have you got the means to communicate with customers, should your main office systems go down?
Many companies also include external help as part of their recovery plan. This involves getting in contact with insurers and health care providers as well as local government agencies who may be able to offer advice. Other companies may also be able to advise on best practices in case of emergency.
Staff Writer; Charles Love
