Even the best-laid plans can go awry, with unpredictable risks that shake our foundations. While recent events have pushed organizations to accelerate their digital transformation efforts, many companies still rely on traditional methods for business continuity and disaster recovery.
This can present massive challenges in the event of the next disruption. So, when dark clouds loom threateningly over your operations, there’s another cloud you should rely on to keep your business flowing: The digital cloud.
Before we get into how cloud-based platforms mitigate risks, it’s helpful to know a little more about business continuity and disaster recovery.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Not the Same Thing
A business continuity plan acts like an umbrella, shielding your organization from internal and external threats. The plan provides guidance on keeping operations and critical business systems functioning so you can continue serving customers in the midst of a disaster — whether it’s a fire, flood, software corruption or cybercrime. The keys to building a successful plan are listening to input from stakeholders across the organization and performing comprehensive research to identify critical business systems.
Disaster recovery is what follows; detailed strategies on how to restore the critical business systems you identified in your business continuity plan, should they fail in a disaster. Execution of a well-designed disaster recovery plan is the linchpin to true business continuity.
But if your plans rely mainly on on-premises technology and staff, vulnerability remains and can further complicate matters if disaster strikes.
How ROM Reinsurance Picked Up the Pieces After Hurricane Sandy
Manhattan-based insurance company ROM Reinsurance understands the importance of disaster recovery, having dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The superstorm left three feet of water in the company’s lobby, making it impossible to run critical business systems, access information and serve customers.
While ROM had undergone an extensive digital transformation, it still hosted its solutions on-premises. Therefore, the insurer was unable to serve customers in need of support during its own disaster recovery.
So ROM reached out to Hyland and quickly migrated critical processes to the Hyland Cloud. This allowed ROM to get back up and running in short order. With access to important data, the organization was able to process claims and get much-needed funds to its clients.
Why Moving to the Cloud Matters Even More Today
In addition to natural disasters, two of the most current attacks on businesses have come in the form of COVID-19 and cybercrime. They demonstrate why the cloud should be a crucial component of your disaster recovery plan.
COVID-19
When the global pandemic began to rage in early 2020, healthcare was most likely the industry it affected most. Healthcare organizations had to put plans in place to protect essential workers, facilitate remote work and ensure patient care was running smoothly.
Hosting technology infrastructure in the cloud enabled healthcare providers to implement solutions quickly and remotely, while keeping staff safe and ensuring work could go on as usual.
That’s likely why 65 percent of healthcare organizations use cloud services, and of these providers, 37 percent made the move due to disaster recovery concerns, according to research conducted by HIMSS Analytics.
Cybercrime
Heavier reliance on technology also means the potential of security breaches is higher. Remote work becoming a norm has further opened the floodgates for cybercrime.
On average, only 5 percent of organizations properly protect their folders, according to data security firm Varonis, which called 2020 an unprecedented year in IT security. Its analysis of data risk in financial services organizations found that at even the smallest firm, employees have access to more than half a million files, including 20 percent of all files containing employee and customer data — leaving sensitive information highly vulnerable to data breaches. This is an important factor to consider when migrating processes to the cloud, as improved security and encryption should be a priority.
That’s why you should look for a natively secure platform that keeps information protected at rest, in transit and in use.
You’ll Find Other Big Wins Along the Way Too
The benefits of moving to the cloud go beyond business continuity and disaster recovery. It also gives you access to experts who monitor, upgrade, patch, troubleshoot and manage solutions on your behalf — freeing your employees to do more strategic work.
Your IT department will also have a significant burden lifted, because the best cloud-based providers offer round-the-clock support in case of any service disruption. With reputable security measures in place, your IT leadership can also breathe easy knowing the organization’s data is well-guarded.
Business continuity and disaster recovery plans must be a priority for any organization, and organizations should frequently reevaluate their strategies to ensure work can go on with minimal disruptions in case of any emergency. While on-premises systems will always be susceptible to threats, there are ways to mitigate significant risks by ensuring all crucial data and processes are stored in the cloud.
Is your information sufficiently protected to withstand impending threats?
To learn more about keeping your operations flowing with cloud-based business continuity and disaster recovery plan, download the eBook, Mitigating Disaster.
Blog post originally appeared on https://blog.hyland.com/.
