What is the True Cost of Disaster Recovery? A Lot Less Than Not Having It?

disaster planning process

You may have held off on any comprehensive disaster planning because of the time and costs involved in the planning process, and it’s hard to blame you. The economy makes the success story far harder to come by these days, and there’s often very little left over for you to make a commitment to preparedness.

Imagine, for a moment, that tomorrow, next week, or in the next year, chaos is suddenly raining down around you. Will any dollar amount you have spent to prepare have been too much? As you begin to tally the potential costs of disaster, that’s hardly the likely scenario.

Imagine, for a moment, that disaster strikes your company tomorrow. In the initial two minutes, how much have you lost? The chances are good that it’s very little. As that two minutes turns to two hours, then four, then eight, those costs begin to escalate very quickly, and you may not even realize the damaging effect until much later. Immediate and long-lasting impacts can be very concrete, or potentially, very subtle. Have you considered these factors?

Your Reputation

People turn to your company over your competitors because they trust you. They’ve worked with you in the past, and they know they can come to you again and again for good service. Once that disaster hits, though, and they suddenly can’t rely on you, they’ll begin to look for alternatives. They’ll find the company that was prepared, and they certainly won’t give you a second thought.

The Lost Revenue

The money lost in the event of a disaster is probably the biggest concern of most companies as they enter the disaster planning process. This can include not only unrecoverable revenue, but also associated interest charges and bad debt. However, sources of future income can dry-up too. If people can’t actually do business with you, book your seminars, download your products, access their accounts, or do many of the other transactions they look to you for, that’s a source of money that eventually vaporizes. It disappears during the disaster, and they may not trust you enough to turn to you even after it’s all over.

The Surprising Costs

There are also many unforeseen, incremental and extraordinary things that can damage a business (and that are not covered unless you have lots and lots of business insurance). Legal actions related to breach of contractual obligations, asset impairment, extra recovery and restoration costs, loss of access to capital and penalties due to violation of codes or regulation are examples, your employees, your suppliers, and even the regulators within your industry already have some level of confidence in what you’re doing. They understand you’re at the top of your game, but if you can’t even put together a solid disaster plan that prevents the potential problems your company would face if tragedy strikes, how can they have confidence in your work while you’re picking up the pieces?

Good disaster planning “raises the bar” and may actually give you the competitive advantage. You haven’t just saved your company from the hassle and lost revenue. You’ve given people a beacon in the storm to look to, and that’s a level of reliability they’ll seek again and again from you.  As they say, “Anyone can steer a boat in calm weather”. What kind of captain do you want to be?

Steve Tower

With many years of professional IT experience, and training as a Certified Management Consultant, a Project Management Professional, a Professional Engineer and a Member, Business Continuity Institute, Steve Tower has the skills and abilities required to assist with even the most complex disaster recovery planning initiatives. Below, Steve discusses the necessary tools involved in setting up a disaster recovery plan and program.