In the days before digitisation, businesses had a limited number of options for dealing with disaster recovery, all of which involved rectifying on-site issues and making do while repair work progressed. But today the average business will have a very low tolerance for downtime or outages of any kind, particularly if they are caused by internal systems being rendered inoperable, or the geographic location of the organisation inaccessible. Business continuity planning can consume significant resources if you intend to manage it in-house, and you will need a fairly large and experienced IT department to successfully navigate the treacherous waters of downtime towards recovery without hitting a few icebergs along the way.

Of course you could choose to look to a third party for support during disasters, as well as for the planning and preparation that will put you in a better position to recover once the worst is over.

Whether you are seeking IT support in London or elsewhere in Europe, outsourcing the elements that will ensure continuity of your operations irrespective of the circumstances is a compelling idea, even if it is not ideal for every business.

Calibrating Continuity

Recovering from a disaster and maintaining access to mission-critical apps and data is easier if your business is not entirely reliant on internal IT systems. A good support provider will be able to ease your transition from on-premises platforms to an ecosystem which allows for certain elements to be hosted remotely.

Business continuity will also rely on the resilience of your telecoms services, so it could be sensible to switch to a unified communications solution like Microsoft Lync. This will let employees stay in touch with one another through mobile devices as well as on-site systems, with web-based services often being a good choice for companies that want to weather whatever storms they might face in the future, both metaphorical and literal.

Cost Considerations

If you are still considering an internal support infrastructure for recovery because of the perceived lower costs associated with this approach, a thorough assessment of the realities of recovery and continuity is required, as there may be additional expenses that have not yet been factored into the equation. Costs will not just include the procurement of hardware and software solutions, but also the investment in staffing you will need to make, with the diversion of resources away from other projects potentially causing consternation.

With a good IT support provider at your side, recovering from disasters should be easier and more affordable, so being prepared is the most important aspect.