Business Continuity in the everyday, snow-affected real world
We often try to engage people in conversations about Business Continuity and their over-riding feeling is that ‘it won’t happen to me’.
For many, the idea of Business Continuity is all about recovering from a fire, bomb, earthquake or another catastrophic event that may befall the office. And, in such a circumstance, it’s easy to see why the ‘it won’t happen to me’ feeling prevails.
But, I often counter that with ‘What happens if your road is closed by the police, and they won’t let you near to the office for a day?’. In these circumstances, having a good backup of your data is not going to help you – by the time you’ve sourced new computers, loaded all your software, restored your data from backup, and gotten yourself working from a new location – it’ll be too late, as your office would be open again! |
Whereas what you actually need is an effective way to communicate with your staff, customers and suppliers as quickly as possible to put in place a temporary plan.
I think this week has shown us all that there’s another scenario that can dramatically affect our businesses – the weather!
For many of our clients, this was the week that they reaped the rewards of some of the technology decisions they’ve taken in the last few years. Sure, using Hosted Exchange gives you everyday benefits (such as Shared Access with colleagues, synchronisation across laptop & desktop and integration with SmartPhones) – but the ability to have FULL access to everything in your Outlook from any PC helps you to do business whilst many around you are left building snowmen.
But, it’s not just your email – you can have similar remote access to pretty much anything you need these days. During this week projectfive have been working as hard as ever. We’ve had to re-schedule a few appointments (the lack of Electricity at client’s sites, or deliveries not getting through from the suppliers causes some issues) but our team have all been working from home with access to everything they need. |
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Even our telephones can be controlled remotely (via a webpage). We can take them home, plug them into our Broadband at home, and they function as though they are in the office. Or we can configure our telephone numbers through the webpage to ring on our mobile phones.
So, if you struggled to do business this week, perhaps it’s time to think about Business Continuity as more than just protection against your office burning down.
Here’s a quick list of some technologies that can help you – and a couple of health-warnings to watch out for too.
As always, if you have any questions, please get in contact with us and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
info@projectfive.co.uk
01276 455455
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Remote Access to Data/Software (using an often misunderstood term of ‘Cloud Computing’) –
- Hosted Exchange Email – including Outlook Anywhere and Outlook Web Access
- Web-Based Applications - such as SalesForce.com, Sage Accounts, Practice Management Software
- SharePoint – Remote Storage and Collaboration Tool from Microsoft
- Remote Desktop or Terminal Services - a virtual PC that you can control from any other PC that’s connected to the Internet
- Offline Files – an encrypted copy of your important data on a portable PC that syncs back to the server when you’re next in the office
- VPN – Virtual Private Network – or a secure connection using your Broadband back to your Office network
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Hosted Telephony
- Call Handling - Controllable diverts to mobiles or home phone numbers
- Remote Telephones – take your office phone home and it still works
- Vodafone Access Gateway – extend your mobile coverage in places where the signal is weak, or make calls over the internet when the mobile network is congested
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Laptops/Docking Stations
Equip your key staff with Laptops and Docking stations – they work like a full desktop in the office – but your team can take them home too. Laptops will have all of the business security and software licences a person needs to operate without putting your infrastructure at risk – can you say the same about your staff’s home PCs'?
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SmartPhones/Blackberrys
Not just an executive toy – but a useful way to stay in contact with the business when you first wake up in the morning!
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GoToMyPC.com etc.
There are plenty of cheap web-based solutions out there to enable you to take remote control of your office PC from home – ideal for smaller businesses who don’t want to invest in Remote Desktops/Terminal Services/Citrix (sorry if that’s too technical!)
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Office Communicator
A secure business-grade version of MSN Messenger – it’s been very useful for us these last few days for on-screen communication throughout the team
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Online Backup – with adhoc access/RemoteDesktop
Our top-of-the-range Online Backup product includes the ability to use a Remote Desktop to access your backed-up data over a remote Broadband Connection – great if you don;t have any of the other solutions mentioned here. But, even more useful in some of the other more dramatic Business Continuity scenarios that you can think of
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Constant Contact – market an opportunity!
Never let an opportunity slip by – maybe the snow gives you an opportunity to tell your potential customers how your products and services could help them in these difficult times – and having the ability to quickly put out a marketing message will help you to win more customers?
Watch out for...
Home Wireless Security
You might have good Security back in the office – but if your staff have the default Wireless Router configuration on their home network, then it’s an easily accessible back-door into your business network
USB Keys
Staff may take import data home to work on (if they saw the weather forecast and anticipated the snow) – but how do you handle multiple people editing copies of the same document ( Version Control)? Or maybe the USB key could bring back a virus to the office when you re-open? And, what happens if your staff lose the USB key containing a client’s data? (Make sure it’s encrypted!)
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Thank you for reading - we hope you found it useful.
www.projectfive.co.uk
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