Continuity Planning 101 — Back to the Basics A Continuing Educational Series

Hurricanes, like many other things considered capable of creating major disasters, do not cause the majority of business interruptions. In fact, if we combine hurricanes, tornados, floods, severe storms, earthquakes, etc., we still fall well below the 50 percent mark for business interruptions. Generally, most interruptions are caused by hardware failures and power disruptions.

The Atlantic hurricane season officially opens in June and extends until November. This educational series traditionally uses the opening of the season as a trigger (similar to using the Spring and Autumn time changes as a reminder for replacing your smoke alarm batteries) to prompt our readers to prepare for business contingencies.

Regardless of the cause, any interruption can be a disaster for an individual business. Fortunately the US Government and non-profit organizations provide a lot of materials to assist business owners in preparing for adverse contingencies. The following link will bring you to an article by the Associated Press emphasizing that companies need to go beyond traditional planning and seek newer and more sophisticated methods:

www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_disaster_ap051707.pdf

The article contains links to other resources including the Department of Homeland Security homepage www.ready.gov. By clicking the homepage banner you will link to: www.ready.gov/business/publications and have access to a boatload of materials. Some of the materials are suitable for consultants and resellers to use as handouts to help clients understand the need to have a contingency plan in place. Key information on how to plan for employees and their families, improve cyber security and implement a communications plan are also included in the documents.

When you go to next link (The Institute for Business and Home Safety), pay attention to the admonition on the opening page: “At least one-fourth of all businesses that close because of a disaster never reopen.” The Institute provides a series of toolkits to help small businesses develop contingency plans. www.disastersafety.org/business_protection

The links and materials listed above provide basic information on how you can develop a plan for your business and TMC (News - Alert) recommends that you also seek out consultants and resellers specializing in this area.

For more information please go to: www.tmcnet.com/disaster-planning or contact Max Schroeder (News - Alert) at [email protected]. You can also visit the Disaster Planning Pavilion at ITEXPO West 2008 the LA Convention Center www.tmcnet.com/voip/conference For exhibitor pavilion information please contact Joe Fabiano at 203-852-6000 [email protected] IT

Max Schroeder is the Senior Vice President of FaxCore (News - Alert), Inc. (www.faxcore.com) and Managing Director of the DPCF

Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) is the President and Group Editor-in-Chief at TMC and is Conference Chairman of Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO.

» Internet Telephony Magazine Table of Contents