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By: Kanika Vishwakarma
- IT Management
- January 16, 2024
- Comments 0
Managed IT Services in Business Continuity Planning
Successful businesses go beyond just experiencing rapid growth. They focus on steady expansion and long-term sustainability. In today’s fast-paced world, technology is crucial for daily operations in almost every business sector.
Staying current with cutting-edge technologies and their effective implementation is essential for every business owner. Moreover, disruptions in IT infrastructure can significantly impact mission-critical operations, cost savings, and reputation.
To mitigate these risks, companies should develop an understanding of Business Continuity Plans (BCPs). Managed IT Services (MITS) providers strengthen this with their expertise. Through ongoing monitoring, proactive maintenance, and timely support, MITS plays a crucial role in supporting BCP.
This blog will explore the true meaning of continuity planning and Managed IT. We will also tackle the components of BCP and how they contribute to the role of MSP (Managed Service Provider). To further reinforce this, we’ve also included case studies.
Business Continuity Definition
Business Continuity Planning is a framework used to assess a company’s susceptibility to internal and external threats. It involves business impact analysis (BIA) to assess potential impacts from unforeseen events, such as floods or cyberattacks. Subsequently, responses are established for each specific situation.
BCP aims to equip businesses with a comprehensive plan to address events jeopardizing their regular operations. A vital aspect of this strategy involves detailed procedures for recovering applications and data lost during a disaster. This process is called a disaster recovery plan. Your IT support company typically manages this component of the backup plan.
How do Managed Services Contribute to Business Continuity Planning?
Skilled Help During Disruptions
Managed services offer an affordable solution. It provides them with access to the necessary technology and expertise, ensuring continuous operations during disruptions. Providers manage hardware, software, and networks, offering technical support to keep systems secure and reliable.
Tailored Instruments and Assets for Enhancing Resilience
Besides providing technical support, MITS can also provide access to tools and resources to help them effectively manage operations. These resources can include data backup and recovery, remote monitoring and management, and disaster recovery services. Access to these resources can help businesses to respond quickly and keep their operations running smoothly.
Plans for Expecting All Possibilities
Using managed services extends to creating and executing a business continuity plan. This plan covers risk evaluations, emergency protocols, and contingency strategies, ensuring quick responses to potential disruptions. The provider plays a crucial role in devising and advising on implementing these plans.
Security Services for Managing and Mitigating Cyber Attacks
Finally, managed services offer businesses access to robust cybersecurity solutions. These cover threat monitoring, firewall management, data encryption, and other measures to stay ahead of the latest cyber threats.
These features protect companies’ data and operations against internal and external threats. And it minimizes the risk of a data breach or other incidents that could severely impact the business. Secure infrastructure is vital for continuity during disruptions.
Key Components of a BCP
- Business impact analysis involves assessing disruption impacts on key functions, including financial, operational, and reputational effects.
- Recovery strategies mean creating plans to restore critical business functions after an interruption.
- Emergency response and notification procedures establish protocols to alert employees, stakeholders, and relevant parties in emergencies.
- Communication plans concentrate on creating clear and effective communication strategies with stakeholders, customers, employees, and others during disruptions.
Data backup and recovery planning is a vital aspect of BCP. It ensures the retrieval of critical data and systems in case of disruption. Emphasizing the importance of BCP is crucial, as it helps businesses avoid costly downtime, credibility damage, and revenue loss. BCP allows companies to maintain customer trust, meet regulatory requirements, and achieve long-term success by ensuring constant functions.
Success Stories in Business Continuity Planning and Managed IT Services
Cantey Technology
Cantey Technology is one of the top South Carolina IT providers. They suffered a setback when a lightning strike caused a fire in their office. Despite losing their infrastructure, they seamlessly maintained client operations because of a well-executed BCP.
They swiftly relocated client servers to a remote data center with ongoing backups. The relocation guarantees continuous services. Additionally, it highlights the value of applying a solid strategy.
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust
In 2016, the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, a hospital network in the UK, fell victim to the Globe2 ransomware. This malicious software encrypted the computer systems.
It led to a complete shutdown of all hospitals for five days. The hospitals needed to turn away over 2,800 patients. The patients included those in labor and those who needed major surgery.
The absence of a BCP worsened the situation. It underlines the importance of data process redundancies and transactions to prevent a complete shutdown in such events.
Atlanta City
In 2018, the City of Atlanta fell victim to the SAMSAM ransomware. The hackers demanded $52,000, a relatively small amount. Yet, the damage from this attack surpassed $17 million.
Emergency IT and crisis management interventions alone cost $3 million. This attack led to significant disruptions in city services, blocking access to police records, courts, and parking services. The city’s computer systems were offline for five days, meaning they had to work hard with manual transactions and paperwork.
City administrators were aware of vulnerabilities but didn’t act promptly. An audit two months before the attack found nearly 2,000 threats because of the outdated software and a culture of ad hoc IT processes.
ECF Data for Seamless Business Continuity Planning
Managed IT Services are crucial for effective business continuity. Providers like ECF Data offer a wide range of IT services to ensure business operations continue despite disruptions. These services include:
- Continuous 24/7 monitoring and support
- Proactive risk identification and mitigation
- Strong data backup and recovery
- Cutting-edge cloud computing solutions
Collaborating with a reliable and experienced managed IT services provider gives you a competitive advantage. It effectively minimizes the impact of IT disruptions and ensures the continuity of operations, even in challenging crises. If your business strives for resilience in the face of disasters, we are here to assist you during your journey.
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