The Sisyphus Comments

Plan Before Disaster Hits

When it comes to disaster readiness, can you ever be too prepared? According the Association of Small Business Development Centers, the effects of a disaster can be quite profound: More than one in four businesses will experience a significant crisis in a given year, and of those businesses that experience a disaster and have no emergency plan, 43 percent never reopen. The same may be true for any organization – including training academies and criminal justice agencies.

Is your organization vulnerable? A new national survey of 2,500 small businesses conducted by TNS NFO for Office Depot found:

• Three-quarters (71 percent) of small business owners do not have a disaster preparedness plan, and;
• While 52 percent claim to burn important files on a removable media device in order to keep data secure, only 11 percent keep copies at an off-site location.

Having weathered four major hurricanes in 2005 at the company’s corporate headquarters and its Gulf Coast store locations, Office Depot is using its real world experience to educate small businesses and organization about disaster preparation. The Company is offering a free brochure entitled Expecting the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness Strategies for Small Business, which provides tips and product recommendations.

The key to effective planning is to protect your most valuable assets: your people and your data. Here are some recommendations:

• Build Solid Contact Lists: Keep contact information for employees, local emergency services, and key vendor and supplier information updated and easily accessible. Establish a clear process for communicating with one another.
• Back-Up Data: Protect your academy or agency from faltering after a disaster by backing-up key data at least once a week. Copy data to removable media, including CD-R and DVD-R discs, or to removable drives such as an Ativa Flash Drive.
• Secure Your Data: Move back-up software to a secure off-site location. Store copies and documents you use in day-to-day operations in a secure and fire-proof location. Periodically review stored data to ensure that the correct data is being copied and that it can be restored.
• Test Your Back-Up System Regularly: Make sure that someone is charged with the responsibility for loading test files and doing periodic restore test to make sure that your backup system is functioning properly. You don’t want to find out after a fire that the back-up disk that you had at an off-site location is actually blank.
• Organize Supplies: Make sure you have the right supplies to withstand any interruption. This includes having access to important business tools like a laptop computer and car charger as well as the basic office supplies needed to run your business.

You’ve worked hard to build the digital assets in your academy or agency. Don’t leave its future to chance. Spending a few hundred dollars now could save you thousands of dollars should the unthinkable happen.

Portions of this article are courtesy of ARAcontent