Hurricane Survival Guide: 7 Vital Tips to Fortify Your Business
WheelHouse IT
IT support and Managed Services Provider (MSP) for businesses in South Florida, Orlando, New York City, and Long Island.
How many days will you be out of business if your office is caught in the path of a hurricane?
Here are seven tips to ensure your business is prepared to weather the storm this upcoming hurricane season.
1. Take Inventory
When a hurricane damages your business’s property, you must deal with an insurance claims adjuster who will determine what damages your insurance will pay for. Unless your business is on wheels, chances are you won’t be able to move your business’s entire IT infrastructure out of the hurricane's path.
We advise you to take inventory of every valuable asset on your business’s property to ensure that all damaged items are accounted for.?Include these assets' make, model, serial numbers, and any licenses you own.
Please remember to make sure you list every detail about these items. Claims adjusters are instructed to give you the lowest value they can for your item based on your provided description. By being descriptive, you ensure you get the accurate asset price.
Your inventory checklist should be stored offsite or in the cloud. Then, If your business gets hit by a hurricane, you will still have access to the checklist.
You can get your Hurricane Preparation Checklist here.
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You can walk through your office and record a video before you leave to ride out the storm. However, this is no substitute for creating a detailed inventory list. So, it should be only as additional evidence.??
2. Backup Your Offsite Data
What would happen if your organization lost all accounting and tax data? Do you know about payroll data? What about all the project estimates the sales team was about to present to clients? What if you are in the middle of your busiest season, and your company loses all recent sales orders?
Natural disasters put your business’s essential data at a much higher risk of being lost. You may have insurance to cover your buildings and physical equipment, and your employees may be willing to work. However, without an offsite backup, all the information your company relies on can be lost.
This can deal a severe blow to your business and can put you out of business entirely. According to FEMA,?40-60% of small businesses?never recover from a natural disaster.
If a hurricane hits your business, please ensure your critical data and software are backed up offsite.
3. Protect Your Electronic Devices
Even if your business’s insurance covers your electronic devices completely, you should still take additional steps to protect them.
The hassle of dealing with claims adjusters, ordering, and installing replacement technology can ensure your business opens its doors after a hurricane, thus losing you money.
Before you leave the office, ensure your electronic devices are protected with these tips:
Read?How to Protect Your Electronics Against Disaster for a deeper discussion.
4. Be Prepared for Power Surges
Power surges are common during natural disasters and can be dangerous to almost anything that uses electricity.
However, with computer equipment, there is the added component of your business’s vital?data passing through to other components by electrical signals.
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If a power surge should occur, not only is?your?computer hardware subject to complete failure along with any data it stores, but the complete transfer of data from one device to another can also fail.
There are many things a business can do to protect its computer hardware and software from damage caused by power surges.
Some of the basic steps to protect your technology include:
Because power surges can occur without a hurricane on your doorstep, ensure your business’s data and electronics are always protected against power surges.
5. Create a Disaster Recovery Plan
If your business relies on technology to run, restoring access to data and hardware quickly will make or break your recovery after a natural disaster.
When it comes to getting your business up and running after a hurricane, you plan to fail if you don’t plan to succeed. This is why we encourage you to have a disaster recovery plan if you don’t already.
Determine who is responsible for disaster recovery. If you’re working with an IT service provider and don’t already have a disaster recovery plan, have them create one or find one that will.
If you want to know more about creating an effective disaster recovery plan for your?business, check out?how we handle?disaster recovery.
6. Test Your Disaster Recovery Plan
A disaster shouldn’t be the first time your disaster recovery plan is tested.?At any given moment, something can happen that will disrupt your IT infrastructure and put your business in downtime.
Have a system where you can perform regular annual tests of your disaster recovery plan. Then it’s ready when you need it.
Make sure your plan is comprehensive and flexible for any disaster. Check out?How to Perform Regular Checks on Your Disaster Recovery Plan for a deeper discussion on this vital topic.
7. Communicate with Suppliers & Vendors
Outside suppliers and vendors are significant in your business’s daily operations. Therefore, any disruption to their business is a disruption to yours.
Collaborate with your supply chain regarding their business continuity plans so that a plan for storm preparation, continued operations, and disaster recovery is in place.
Consistent and proper communication between businesses and suppliers is essential to minimizing downtime during a hurricane.
Final Thoughts
Following these seven tips will give your business its best chance at minimizing downtime, data loss, and financial loss this hurricane season.
If you have any questions about the tips in this article, feel free to?contact us.