Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Companies today face an unprecedented amount of risks from weather-related events. The severe weather events that have taken place in the last few years such as Hurricane Sandy, tropical storms in the Philippines and intense cold conditions in Europe and North America have affected the complex network of technology, logistics and supply chain for corporations. Though it is impossible to avoid these events in the future, the best way is to take steps to reduce its impact on the business.

Disaster recovery programs are those processes that are implemented by the company to mitigate its damage during an unforeseen weather event. These programs are more important for small businesses because they are the ones that are most affected during a natural calamity. Unfortunately, almost one half of small businesses have no such plan in place. A study conducted by Travelers in 2012 show that 48 percent of American small business owners have no disaster recovery plan. In fact, this trend extends to other countries, too. A study in the Philippines showed that 25 percent of small and medium businesses (SMEs) do not back up their desktops while another 20 percent have no server backup, according to Roderick Abad of businessmirror.com. This lack of disaster recovery plan is detrimental to the company and the employees that depend on it.

To avoid such catastrophic situations, it is important for business to have a plan in place. The first step is to create a pre-defined and well-documented plan that would explain how the business would respond during an emergency. Such a document will help to prevent loss of life and property. The second aspect is to protect the data and applications by constantly doing a backup of all servers and desktops. Along with these steps, priorities and recovery time objectives should be laid down by the business to speed up its recovery after the disaster.

Further, it helps to have a power backup system in place. Minuteman UPS/Para Systems (News - Alert), a provider of unique and robust power protection solutions, offers an array of products geared toward businesses, from outlet surge protectors to UPS (uninterruptible power supplies). Using power protection equipment can save such businesses thousands in costly damages and lost revenue due to outages, as well as keep things running smoothly and efficiently in the event of an interruption or total outage.