Is your park or dealership ready for an IT Disaster?
Mar 29, 2011
Information Technology (IT) is now an integral part of most people’s lives both at home and at work. Parks & Dealers rely on IT for many parts of their business activities such as marketing, sales order processing, bookings and reservations, accounting, credit control and wage roll.
Modern technology is great when it works, but for most of us, it can be exceptionally frustration when it goes wrong. For SMEs, IT failures can mean annoyance for employees and wasted time but such failures could result in the loss of commercially important information or personal data. Imagine losing your IT system on the Friday afternoon of a Bank Holiday weekend with caravans queuing up at the gate or on a Monday morning just before the start of the season when the workshop is booked up with for last minute servicing and repairs. Ultimately, disruption to a business’s IT systems could lead to the total failure if the company.
A recent survey of SMEs by Symantec has found has found 5% around 240,000 UK firms are not taking any steps to backup data and are leaving themselves exposed to risks of data loss and downtime.
The research also discovered that significant numbers did not have a disaster recovery plan in place.
Wilby Risk Management would recommend that all companies be prepared for potential disasters to their IT systems:
- Have a rigidly enforced back-up process in place with the data stored in a suitable location off-site. Be aware what is being backed-up. Is it just data or is it the system programmes as well? Are security passwords stored off-site?
- Who knows how the back-up process works? Many companies have an individual who is in charge of the IT system and knows how the back- up and recovery plans work. But what would happen if they were on holiday when the disaster occurred? Multi-skilling and cross training must be considered.
- An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) will allow a system to be closed down in an orderly manner avoiding the loss or corruption of date. However, the UPS must be connected to all critical parts of the IT system and should have adequate capacity.
- There should be a documented plan in place prioritising the restoration of the different parts of the system. The business should be aware of the time implications associated with the full restoration of the system – this could be many hours.
- The IT disaster recovery plan should be regularly tested for a range of scenarios from temporary power losses through to the complete loss of a server. Quarterly reviews of the plan should also be carried out to ensure it remains suitable for the business as it grows and changes.
- Plans to prevent and recover from IT failures should form part of a company’s business continuity strategy. Without an IT risk assessment, well enforced plans, regular testing and periodic reviews a business’s long term viability may be at risk.
For further information please contact Mark Dalton or why not connect with him on Linked In?
