Going out of business can be ruinous to anyone's financial plan, especially when it could easily have been avoided. This is the case with corporate continuity initiatives, business strategies that help companies plan for worst case scenarios like natural disasters. These are vital tools to modern organizations, especially with these entities relying on technology and online resources more than ever before.
Finding the faults
According to Bank Info Security, businesses need to start by accessing their weaknesses and planning for every eventuality. That may sound overwhelming, but breaking down systems and isolating their vulnerabilities will help make the process compartmentalized. That means finding ways to access company payroll and business banking even when the physical location is inaccessible, or setting up security for a company's cloud resource and online banking to ensure that outside parties can't get in. Net Security wrote that half of the top CIO's in the U.S. never test their security and governance policies when it comes to cloud deployments. This gaping security shortfall could cost them essential data assets.
Digital error issues
With so much money changing hands online, it's more important than ever that companies find ways of keeping these virtual stores up and running. Companies of all sizes should be aware that a power outage at their location will close their operations temporarily, but a widespread natural disaster or failure at the server center where a cloud is hosted can make these periods stretch for days or weeks at a time. An AuditNet benchmarking survey found that half of all respondents had suffered continuity failures due to natural disasters in the last year.
It may seem hard enough planning for a power outage or natural disaster knocking out cloud deployments and internet connectivity, but businesses also need to be aware that consumer accounts and financial information can easily be stolen if site security is subpar. The AuditNet review found third party intrusions affected one-third of all businesses, while more than half suffered from internal data processing errors. Putting continuity strategies into a financial plan can start a company in a position to avoid these problems.