Floods, fires, tornados, earthquakes, pandemics, riots, and hurricanes are just a small sample of the potential disasters that threaten businesses almost daily. Throughout my career, I have been responsible for preparing, managing, and rebuilding major communications infrastructure and the businesses they support before, during, and after disasters. Sometimes this was due to devastating natural disasters but most were the more common disasters that visit us every day like burst pipes, public transportation strikes and the extended loss of utilities to one or more locations.
Naturally, businesses are all building good Disaster Recovery and Business Continuance (DR/BC) plans for that inevitable bad day – or are they? According to the Small Business Alliance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), between 25 and 40 percent of businesses never reopen after a major disaster. With all the cloud-based technology available, this statistic is astonishing and entirely avoidable.