Can your business survive without IT systems?

How long can your business continue to function without working IT systems?

If the internet connection to your main office stopped working right now, how long would it be before it caused huge disruption to your business?

If you were unable to send or receive emails due to a server fault, when would it become such a big problem that you started to lose money?

Have you ever been asked these types of questions? If you’re a small business owner, I doubt that you have. You see there is a big problem with how most small business IT networks are managed.

The operating needs of most small businesses are rarely aligned with how their technology is setup and supported. The worrying thing about this is that most small business owners are completely oblivious.

What do I mean by this? Let’s look at a couple of real-life examples.

Customer: “We can’t be without our internet connection for more than 4 hours max.”

This business had a single internet connection with BT. BT have 2 working days to fix internet faults.

Customer: “If our email goes down, we start to lose money because of the nature of business we’re in. Time really is money. Without email for more than an hour is a problem”

The email for this business lives on a server in their office. The server doesn’t have any kind of manufacturer’s warranty in place. If the server developed a hardware fault, email could be unavailable for between 3-9 days.

These two examples were from two recent new client meetings. It’s a common thread.

So what’s the answer?

In short, you need to develop a plan. A plan for every eventuality. This plan should be a written document which is constantly reviewed and updated as your business changes.

I’ve broken the plan down into 3 easy steps:

Step 1 – Define your business needs.

You need to sit down with other people in your organization and define exactly how long you can realistically be without your IT systems. Try and break it down; how long can you be without email? How long can you be without a working internet connection? What about Sage? Your files and folders?

In the IT world, this is known as the RTO or Recovery Time Objective. The maximum amount of time your business can work unhindered without a working system or service.

Step 2 – Access the current situation

You then need to sit down with your IT department/company and look at what is in place today. If the internet failed today, how long would it take to fix? If the server was stolen tonight, how long would it take for your business to resume normal operations?

This can sometimes be the painful part for many small business owners because the reality of the situation can be a real eye-opener.

Step 3 – Bridge the gap – make a plan.

So you’ve just found out that if your server failed today it could be down for anything between 3-9 days. In step 1 you defined that you couldn’t really live without your server for more than 4 hours.

What can be done to align your business need with technical reality? In the above example, it’s fairly straightforward – you can buy a 4-hour fix server warranty.

In some cases minimising the risk isn’t cost effective for small businesses. The technology or software might be more than your business can afford.

But at least you’re aware of it. At least you can plan a workaround when/if it happens.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve spoken to people who have just recovered from a 3-day IT outage. The same questions are always asked after the event. “How can we prevent that from happening again?”

Isn’t it a better idea to ask those questions at the start?