Reinforce business continuity planning with communications and systems

We look at building resilience into your business – and how technology can play a key role in this.

Disruption to your business can take many forms – but the outcomes can often be very similar: a loss of productivity, a negative impact on customer relations and staff communication, reduced confidence in your organisation, lost sales opportunities, missed deadlines and ultimately, a potentially catastrophic impact on the financial health of your business.

Business continuity planning – to ensure that your business can continue if the unexpected happens – is therefore crucial.

So how can your business be disrupted?

Power loss

This can lead to complete operational shutdown and mean that your staff can’t communicate with customers (and each other) from your offices.

Theft and vandalism

Theft or vandalism could lead to the loss of critical equipment and staff may not be able to access your offices if a police investigation is underway. In addition, if IT hardware is stolen or damaged, vital data could be lost.

Fire

Damage to critical equipment – and potentially, the permanent loss of your premises – can have a devastating impact on your ability to operate. If fire breaks out in the vicinity of your business premises, this may prevent your staff from coming into work.

Illness

An outbreak of flu, or another serious contagious disease, could stop your staff from coming into work – or may lead you to closing your facilities to protect your workforce.

Travel disruption

Snow, flooding and major transport incidents can prevent your staff from coming into work, affecting productivity and disrupting communication with customers.

Natural disaster

A storm or flooding can render a business premises inoperable and inaccessible, disrupting operations and preventing staff from accessing your site. A natural disaster can also lead to damage to critical equipment and data loss.

Connectivity disruption

Loss of a broadband connection or phone line at your premises can leave your staff unable to effectively communicate or use the software they need to perform their tasks.

Supply chain disruption

If critical equipment or raw materials are suddenly unavailable, the knock-on effect can affect your ability to operate.

Business continuity planning

Business continuity planning – to ensure that your business can continue if the unexpected happens – is crucial. You need to have the systems in place to ensure that your organisation can get up and running rapidly, so that disruption to staff and customers is kept to a minimum.

Business continuity planning focuses on dealing with any potential impacts on day to day operations and takes in to account staff, building facilities, company equipment, IT infrastructure and the supply chain.

How can technology help you build resilience into your business?

Communications

Ensuring that your staff can keep in touch with each other and with customers is a key part of ensuring business continuity in the event of disruption. We can embed a range of solutions into your organisation which can help.

SIP Trunks

Internet telephony for voice and video calls, and instant messaging, can be delivered through Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).

It can provide a resilient phone service to cope with any emergency – for instance if one office location is out of action, calls can be instantly routed to another, free of charge.

You can also benefit from greater resilience by building an automatic failover system into your communications strategy for lines and calls should your main site go down. SIP trunks allow you to instantly centralise and distribute the calls somewhere else, to staff members working from home, for example.

SIP Trunk Call Manager

SIP Trunk Call Manager’s ‘One Touch’ call routing allows management via mobile, meaning calls can rapidly and easily diverted to a mobile or other line. In the event of a disruption to your main office communications, SIP Trunk Call Manager will ensure that your customers’ experience won’t be affected – and your teams can continue to operate.

VoIP/Hosted PBX

Hosted PBX is a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service which enables your phone service to be delivered via an internet connection. In the event of a disaster the services can be instantly moved across to a backup plan that can include diverting calls to different sites.

Software and digital solutions

Cloud-based software doesn’t just enable greater working flexibility – it enables your staff to work from any location with an internet connection, so operations can be maintained. The software solutions we provide can also keep data safe, ensuring that in the event of a disaster, no important information is lost.

Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud-based solution which allows your staff to work, collaborate and access the documents they need wherever they are. If they are unable to access your office in the event of disruption, they can still carry on working.

Microsoft OneDrive for Business

Microsoft OneDrive for Business enables you to keep data secure in the cloud and access it from anywhere. This solution therefore helps to mitigate the risk of damage to your IT hardware, or your premises suddenly becoming inaccessible.

Box Online Storage

Box Online Storage enables you to protect important information against fire, floods or theft as it provides secure backup and encryption. Your staff can get to your documents from anywhere, on any device, so long as they have an internet connection.

Sage 200cloud

Sage 200cloud is a business management solution which has the ability to be cloud-based, so you can manage your business – and gain visibility over your organisation – from any location, if disruption means you are unable to access your office.

Sage CRM

If your sales team are unable to work from the office, they can maintain operations as Sage CRM allows them to access the information they need, wherever they are.

MaaS360

A mobile device management solution, MaaS360 enables you to facilitate the management of handsets, tablets and laptops connected to one network.

For more information on building resilience into your business, click here.

Worried about your company’s disaster recovery capabilities? Concerned that your business could be vulnerable from unexpected disruption? Call our experts today on 08700 118 000 or email info@cellular-solutions.co.uk.