10 CRUCIAL THINGS NEEDED IN YOUR DRP

A carefully crafted Disaster Recovery Plan is the stepping stone to keeping your business humming, even if a disaster strikes. There are some crucial aspects to be considered when preparing a DRP. The ten crucial things for a DRP are:

• Mission Critical Employees – list out all such employees, along with their job functions as these are critical to production.
• The DRP should have a person in overall command. The plan should also mention the next in command to take care of incapacitation of the leader. Each department should have a designated leader to coordinate with the DR team.
• Prioritize mission-critical functions and departments. These have to be restored in the order of criticality.
• List out the equipment essential to maintain production. Such equipment should have back-ups, both on and off site.
• Select one offsite location for recovery and one for back-up functioning.
• Create a plan for translocation of critical employees to the offsite Disaster Recovery Plan location. Build in an option for families to move to the vicinity of the off-site location if need be.
• Create a financial plan to take care of the sudden upsurge in expenses during the recovery phase.
• A communications plan, to keep all stakeholders informed, is an essential part of the DRP.
• Have an inventory of all the assets the business owns. The assets should include both digital and physical assets. This will enable almost complete data recovery. Lists of the physical assets are important for claiming insurance.
• The DRP should be updated and reviewed at regular intervals, along with suitable staff training.

Once the above ten points are covered in detail, the business has ensured that it is well prepared to face the challenge of any disaster.