This article originally appeared in the April 2011 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.
Rules of the Game
Monopoly Tax Rules – Estimate your tax at $200 or pay 10 percent of total worth to the bank as a penalty. "Go to Jail" usually means visiting.
IRS Tax Rules – Estimates and penalties also apply. "Go to Jail" does not mean visiting.
Disaster Tax Rules – Disaster could result in ending business operations, but a DR plan could be your "Get Out of Jail Free" card.
A business continuity/DR plan or plan upgrade may not be at the top of an organization’s priority list so budgetary approval can sometimes be a challenge. Strangely, this approach goes counter to the fundamental goal of a BC/DR plan – company survival. Fortunately, April is a good time for a BC/DR plan review. It is still early in the year, so some budgetary resources are usually available.
Conveniently, today’s advancements in technology have also made the cost of implementing BC/DR plans much more affordable. Plus, your organization may already have several BC/DR components in place. The next step will be to inventory these components. Make a checklist starting with VoIP, FoIP, VMware, Hyper-V, hosted services, employees with home offices, unified communications and SaaS (News 
- Alert) applications that are in place or about to be implemented.
Next, define what business requirements senior management considers absolutely critical for your organization’s survival, such as revenue preservation, customer retention and regulatory compliance. Presenting this list to management and getting their agreement is the first step in receiving overall plan approval.
The next step is gap control. Determine if the checklist components meet all the critical requirements. If not, list what changes or additional components are necessary to fill the gaps. Make sure you look at any hosted services such as VoIP, FoIP and SaaS. They can have the shortest time to delivery and may also be the least expensive options. You can also refer to our December 2010 column “Needed - Another Y2K Threat” for some ideas.
The month began on April Fools’ Day. Don’t let it end with you being April’s fool. Get started on your plan now.
Max Schroeder is senior vice president of FaxCore (News - Alert), Inc. (www.faxcore.com) and managing director of the DPCF.
Rich Tehrani is CEO and group editor-in-chief at TMC (News - Alert), and conference chairman of ITEXPO.
TMCnet publishes expert commentary on various telecommunications, IT, call center, CRM and other technology-related topics. Are you an expert in one of these fields, and interested in having your perspective published on a site that gets several million unique visitors each month? Get in touch.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
