Your Business Needs IT

Why Managed Services Should be Part of Your Hurricane Preparedness Business Plan

planning starts with understanding the threats to your business and their implications:

• Is the area prone to severe weather events?
• What is the likelihood or frequency of an extended power outage?
• What if you lost Internet connectivity?
• Can you quickly detect and contain a cyberattack?

As we enter the hurricane season each year—June 1 to November 30 – researchers continually predict above average seasons. The 2021 forecast predicts 16-20 named storms, 7-10 hurricanes with 3-5 of those being major hurricanes. History tells us that these storms can leave many without power, safe shelter and other resources for days, weeks and even months on end. Southwest Louisiana is still recovering from last year’s hurricanes—Laura and Delta, along with Winter Storm Uri. The infrastructure in the region is still compromised and organizations are still in the recovery process.  Businesses cannot eliminate disasters, but proactive preparation can mitigate loss. 

A disaster is, by definition, an unexpected event. Even with some notice of an impending catastrophe, organizations can suffer serious losses. That’s why it’s critically important to have an up-to-date and tested business plan to ensure your personnel know what to do in the face of a disaster to maintain critical operations and minimize disruptions—and a managed service provider (MSP) can be an important ally in business continuity planning. 

 It is a way for you to outsource the day-to-day management of your IT needs, but the specifics vary on the services provided based on your business needs. Essentially, they are your business’s IT department, helping you increase productivity and profitability.

“The only way to protect your business from the unpredictable aftermath of a storm is being prepared, and it all starts with having a disaster recovery plan in place to ensure your organization can continue operating,” says Brett Dering, owner of Kinetic IT Solutions in Lake Charles. “Outsourcing the management of your IT infrastructure and disaster recovery solution will help your business maintain normal operations at all times, especially during a disaster situation. We can help monitor your systems and applications and provide 24/7/365 support, regardless of what is happening at your physical location. It is our job to maintain your infrastructure and ensure its uptime and availability, while enabling your personnel to focus on your business goals.”

A disaster recovery plan doesn’t just focus on procedures for restoring systems and infrastructure during and after an event, but also hardware failures, viruses and hackers. The plan identifies all IT functions within the business and their critical dependencies.  For example, what is an acceptable amount of downtime for each function? How will you communicate with customers? Could personnel work from an alternate location? 

“When planning for the unforeseen, we look at the big picture. This includes increasing network security as remote workers connect to your company network. Personnel may be displaced and working from guest networks at hotels, coffee shops and other often-insecure locations. We also look at what software, connection, phone and equipment needs your business may have both in and out of the physical office and offer training to employees on the technology to make sure they can work remotely effectively,” Dering added.

Technology is always growing, adapting and changing, and businesses too need to grow, adapt and change along with it, which means business plans aren’t a “one-and-done deal.” “These plans need to be visited and adapted,” said Dering. “An MSP partner can help you create a plan for future IT growth or IT road mapping. By planning ahead, you can ultimately set your business up for successful growth.”

To learn more about how managed IT services can help your business or to get started on building your disaster recovery plan, please visit www.meetyourIT.com or call 337-513-4272 to schedule your FREE IT consultation.