Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Business Continuity Planning & Disaster Recovery Planning

Every business and organization can experience a serious incident which can prevent it from continuing normal operations. This this can happen any day at any time. The potential causes are many and varied: flood, explosion, computer malfunction, accident, grievous act... the list is endless.

I found an informative website by a company called Disaster Recover World that helps businesses address and plan for emergencies. Any organization must take the implementation disaster recovery plan seriously. The time to plan for disaster is before it occurs and a serious incident can of course occur at any time.

COMMITMENT

The leaders of any organization set the tone for the corporate culture and they must demonstrate a clear commitment to establishing and maintaining an effective disaster recovery planning process. All management and staff should be informed that a disaster recovery plan is required in order to ensure that essential functions of the organization are able to continue in the event of serious adverse circumstances.

THE PLANNING

Having obtained the full backing of the organization, the person or team developing the plan needs to prepare carefully. A good start is to create a list of all necessary documents and information. Where this includes documents containing sensitive information, care must be taken to ensure that confidentiality is not compromised.

DETERMINE KEY BUSINESS AREAS

The disaster recovery plan should include a descriptive list of the organization's major business areas. This list should rank the areas in order of importance to the overall organization. Each item should include a brief description of the business processes and main dependencies on systems, communications, personnel, and information / data.

The information provided in this article is general information only and is not intended as legal advice. DO NOT use this information as a substitute for obtaining qualified disaster planning help. Please contact us at (619) 448-2129 or e-mail us for a consultation.

About the Author: Carl H. Starrett II has been a licensed attorney since 1993 and is a member in good standing with the California State Bar and the San Diego County Bar Association. Mr. Starrett practices in the areas of bankruptcy, business litigation, construction, corporate planning and debt collection.

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