Be Prepared to do Business without Computers

Businesses that are aggressive will grow quickly, and in the same way, businesses that have an aggressive continuity plan will survive the worst disasters. You need to aggressively be prepared for any disaster, even the scenarios that leave your company without computers.

Don't Let Downtime Destroy Your Bottom Line
You may think that doing business without a computer is impossible, but before computers were invented, entire economies somehow worked perfectly fine. We aren't implying that you get rid of your computer and adopt the barter system; instead, we're suggesting that your business continuity plan includes printed instructions on how to keep operations going in the event of a computer crash.

A disaster that takes out your computers may feel like a long shot, but keep in mind that a natural disaster can easily take out your power, and leave your business in the dark. The benefit of preparedness is that you don't have to be fearful about these worst-case scenarios hitting your business because you have a plan of action to keep operations going.

Examples of Industries with a Computer-less Plan
It may take some outside-the-box thinking to come up with operating procedures not dependent upon computers, but this isn't as farfetched of an idea as it sounds. For example, many retailers still have the old machine on hand that imprints credit card information on to carbon paper. Using these machines may take longer to process the sale, but customers will appreciate having this as an option. Especially the customers that sunk a lot of time into shopping, only to pull up to the register with a cart full of goods and see a sign that reads, "Credit Card Network Down. Cash Only. Sorry."

Banking is another industry that's accustomed to having a non-technical backup plan. This is why a student earning a degree in finance will be required to take classes on how to use paper ledgers. With all the different financial software available, the entire banking process is now entirely automated and it's been years since tellers manually recorded transactions. However, a bank that wants to provide exceptional customer service will have the ledgers on standby just in case their computer system were to crash.

What's Your Business Continuity Plan Look Like?
What would this level of preparedness look like for your business? What would be your next move if a blackout occurred and every computer in Chicagoland went down? TechRepublic highlights the value of drafting manual procedures. "Hopefully, these guidelines will just gather dust in desk drawers—but if you ever have a total outage, you will appreciate how valuable it is to have 'old fashioned' methods of doing business—and employees who are trained to operate 'by hand' if they have to."

It's important to have a business continuity plan in place for when your network goes down, and one of the most vital parts of this plan is to have procedures to get your networks up and running as quick as possible. This is where Preferred fits into your plan because we can provide IT service both remotely and in person, and with network monitoring, we will automatically be notified if your server goes down and be there right away to fix it.

Data backup is another crucial component to your business continuity plan that you need in case a power outage strikes. All of your carefully crafted manual procedures will be worthless if you get your network up and running again, only to find that your data was lost in the outage. The best backup solution that will safeguard your business from data loss is Preferred's Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) tool. With BDR, all of your information is stored to the cloud and is available for virtualization on a terminal to keep operations going after a disaster.

To learn more about BDR, or to have us help you draft a solid business continuity plan that will prepare your company for any disaster, give us a call at 708-781-7110.