New potential dangers are on the horizon. Yet the consensus within the disaster recovery industry indicates that most organizations are still poorly prepared for a disaster.

In fact, since 9/11, only 58% of companies report that they have a disaster recovery plan. Of the organizations that do have a plan, only half have been tested. And that’s almost as bad as not having a plan at all. Continuity Plans are only theory until they have been exercised.

Almost every day, the evening news display visual reminders of the potential devastating impacts to our world. Rapidly changing events: typhoons, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, lightning storms and wild fires are all on the increase. Emergency preparedness isn’t a luxury… it’s a necessity!

Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophic event on our own soil killing over 1,800 people, damaging 100’s of thousands of homes and affecting more than 3 million people. There were also 745,855 businesses employing 12,164,756 people who were negatively affected by this particular event. Some company’s survived, many did not.

Effective Planning is Your Route to Recovery

Major events do carry with them these huge numbers of impacts. But most companies in every neighborhood are negatively impacted by much smaller events like power outages, fires, local flooding, media coverage, viruses, fraud, theft and hundreds of other threats. When faced with these types of circumstances, every company better have an effective business continuity plan to deal with the crisis.

Equally important is a properly trained workforce that is capable of a quick response by initiating control activities and rapidly restoring mission-critical functions. Does everyone in your organization know what the most important first step is for recovery?

Business threats are abundant in today’s world – chemical, biological, industrial accidents and terror actions loom on the horizon. Whether you are looking to create a business continuity plan or desiring to improve and update your existing plan, there are excellent resources available to make your job easier. And the process of developing continuity plans does not need to be complicated.

Wondering Where to Begin?

The task of creating an effective plan doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Here’s a great place to start:

• Engage, equip and empower
• You’ll need innovative and proven techniques, tools and training to be successful
• Utilize and implement “continuity best practices” – why reinvent the wheel?
• Build simple, accurate and viable plans
• If you can’t measure it – don’t do it
• Incorporate training at all levels of the organization
• Multimedia training can save time and money