Disaster recovery (DR) is an essential part of business continuity, as it enables organizations to restore files and applications from a recent version in case these become compromised. An alarming study by asset management company Mercer found that 51% of businesses worldwide do not have a disaster recovery strategy in case of emergencies or disasters.

If there’s anything that 2020 has taught business owners, it’s that preparedness is key to survival. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, business plans were thrown off course and remote working setups had to be implemented almost overnight. Organizations that had infrastructure and strategies in place were able to quickly shift their configurations to adapt to the changing times, but businesses that didn’t have a disaster recovery plan greatly struggled.

Companies underfund their disaster recovery (DR) plans, not realizing how crucial they are for the survival and protection of the business. Several hours of downtime can cost thousands, even millions of dollars.

Another mistake is to mimic the DR strategies and budgets of other companies.

IT infrastructure such as hardware, networks, applications, and data are assets that businesses depend on. As such, creating a disaster recovery plan (DRP) should be a priority of every business. It ensures that these assets can be protected, saved, or recovered when a disaster such as an outage, cyberattack, hardware failure, or natural disaster hits.

Protecting your information technology infrastructure is vital. Your organization can’t afford to be unprepared in the event of disasters such as regional power outages, cyberattacks, or hardware failures. Every minute of downtime can cost thousands of dollars.

Every company should have a disaster recovery plan in place that allows business to resume within a specified amount of time. Additionally, the plan should be audited and updated regularly, considering any system upgrades and other factors that may affect its implementation.