Backup and Disaster Recovery: Beyond IT
The likelihood of an informational outage is less in today’s world, yet many businesses would be at a stand still if their paramount data, such as documents, records, and files, were to become unavailable from an outage. IT services and the cloud have made great strides in providing reliable data saving for small businesses and give that peace of mind for our electronic documents. Though, as we try to be leaner and greener by cutting back on our paper usage, any business still has physical paper documentation. So, how do we make sure that our paper information has the same type of backup and safety that our electronic information has, if it were to go missing?
Protecting your physical information
The IDC reports that 58 percent of businesses still rely on paper documents for business processes that are critical for every day activities. These crucial key files, if lost, would be disruptive for business functions on every level.
Paper documents are hard to back up and nearly impossible to get back. Even if physical documents are stored in on-campus filing cabinets or off-campus storage facilities, something could go terribly wrong. When water damage, fire damage, misfiling, or theft occur, having a backup is important.
Taking the time to backup paper documents, especially those that are critical to the business’ operations, such as financial department documentation will save time and frustration later down the road. Creating a system that allows the backing up of critical paper documents into a disaster recovery plan is just as important as having employees to do work or having an office to do the work in.
There are other benefits to backing up your data digitally as well. Having digital copies of certain documents, especially when on a shared drive, can give the necessary people access to documents in an instant thus increasing productivity.
Conversion from paper to digital copies of documents is now easier than ever with the advances in technology. If your business does not have the manpower to do it, the conversion can even be done for you.
The non-technical side of business continuity
As discussed, having electronic copies of paramount paper data is critical. Similarly, having paper copies of key electronic data is also critical. The disaster recovery plan is a cycle of having the right information in both paper and electronic form, to make sure the day to day operations can still run in case either fall short.
In order to make sure that you have the necessary documents in case of a power outage or system failure, here are some considerations of documents to be kept current and in paper form.
Do you have:
• Employee/Company partner phone numbers, addresses, email?
• Supplier phone numbers, addresses, email?
• Important customers phone numbers, addresses, email?
• Policies and procedures in place for notifying/handling customers and partners during this downtime?
• A plan of action of what to do during a power outage? including duties for each position as well as the people in those positions properly trained for these duties?
• Communication crisis plan that is in place in case the outage is for an extended period of time?
• Social media management plan?
• Steps of what to do once the disaster is over in order to back up important information and resume as normal?
Disaster recovery does not have to be just an expense and plan that will, hopefully, not need to be used. Instead, consider having a disaster recovery plan can help your business comply with industry and government regulations. If designed well, disaster recovery can be incorporated seamlessly into your data backup plan and day to day activities so that, if the day were come, your business will be ready.
Planning ahead and making sure that you have a back up plan is crucial to making sure you business is safe from lost productivity due to data downtime. Data loss, whether within the wiring of a computer system or through the loss of physical copies, can be a nuisance to any business. Backing up your data using a comprehensive plan is the solution.
And that’s where we can help. Learn more at www.stratixsystems.com or call us toll-free 1-800-444-2943

About Stratix Systems
With offices in Reading, Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia and Central and Northern New Jersey, Stratix Systems is one of the region’s leading technology solutions partners —with the people, resources and experience to deliver the IT, content/document management and imaging support you need: where, when and how you need it. In fact, very few providers in the region can match the vast array of total business solutions and responsive service available from Stratix Systems. It’s no wonder why we are the partner-of-choice for over 4,500 organizations throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Have a question? Get an answer. Our experienced systems experts would be happy to answer your questions, help you explore your options and develop a customized plan for you. Learn more at www.stratixsystems.com or call us toll-free 1-800-444-2943.