A recent article in USA Today quoted an Ad Council survey showing nearly two-thirds of small businesses do not have an emergency plan in place. Also referenced was an Insurance Information Institute study showing that 40 percent of businesses affected by natural or manmade disasters never reopen. Frankly, these statistics are totally unacceptable in today’s world.

A full disaster recovery plan in 2000 or even 2005 was expensive and cumbersome.  Physical backup offices and support sites were usually necessary. Now, at the midpoint of the second decade of the 21st Century, a plethora of business continuity solutions minimize or eliminate the requirement for physical office space. Data storage and VoIP were some of the earliest hosted cloud solutions and are proven components for BC.  Lync and Microsoft (News - Alert) Office 365 also address a wide-ranging marketplace, and the application components are well-known to most office personnel.     

Some products are designed to address the broad marketplace yet meet the requirements of specialized markets like the financial and health care industries. etherFAX’s fax hybrid offers CPE deployments combined with a secure cloud service and full fax encryption.  TMC’s (News - Alert) Online Community Mobile Market Portal addresses enterprise mobility management solutions such as device management, application management, email containers and virtualization. However, your organization must first implement the solutions to be protected, so don’t procrastinate.

Educating yourself first is always a good idea. Begin by scheduling some time to visit TMC’s site and research the Communities, Channels and Technologies tabs for the most current information on today’s solutions. Next, draft a checklist of your present BC/DR requirements. Do not hesitate to utilize a reseller or consultant specializing in BC to draft the list and assist in evaluating the latest technologies available. The list of hosted service options seems to be growing exponentially, so selecting the right partner is critical to your BC design and implementation. 

Last but not least, strongly consider adding ITEXPO (News - Alert) East 2015 to your checklist.  The event will be located at Miami Beach Convention Center and runs Jan. 27 through 30. Some of the collocated events such as Asterisk (News - Alert) World, Case Study University, M2M Evolution, and Smart Conference are also very relevant to BC planning. 

You only have one chance to survive your first disaster, so get moving today. 

Max Schroeder (News - Alert) is vice president emeritus at Faxcore.