Any business owner, regardless of the size of their business, should have a disaster recovery plan in place. Data loss can occur in any number of ways. From human error or viruses, to hardware or system malfunction. If you’ve ever experienced the “blue screen of death”, you know the disbelief and the feeling of PANIC that shortly follows. I recently experienced a blue screen moment and can testify to the panic that ensues. Our main computer suffered a virus that locked up every program on our system. In a heartbeat we were unable to access

* Customer Data Bases
* Inventory data
* Financial documents
* Marketing materials, including a huge data base of pictures and video tutorials
* Employee Records
* … and the list goes on…

Thankfully, we had a solid recovery plan in place and were able to call in the right people to resolve our worst nightmare within a few hours. BUT… what if we had not protected ourselves with a data recovery plan? Certainly, we would not be in business today. Our recovery plan was implemented when I first started my company. I contacted a local IT firm to provide managed IT services. It has been a God-send in every sense of the word. Yes, I do have to pay a monthly fee for this service, however, should anything fail, malfunction, or need service, I just pick up the phone and help is on the way. In a nutshell, I have transferred the day-to-day technology management responsibilities to a team of professionals. They host all of our business software and provide support for us 24/7.

I understand that not all businesses are in a position to employee the services of an IT company. However, you can still protect your data by having a good back-up program in place. Whether you use your own back-up device or an online back-up service, you need to make sure your data is protected EVERY SINGLE DAY. You have worked too hard to make your business a success. Why would you jeopardize all that hard work? Here is a starting point that will provide information or services that can help you to better manage your business data.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Denise_Marks

How Secure Is Your Business Recovery Planning?

So how secure is the data that is stored in these companies computers? The fact is that with todays new anti virus software and firewall protection, the data that is stored in business computers is very secure. However; the fact is that the word “very” means that there is some level of danger.

Properly Assessing Risk Potential

It seems that every few months there is another news report about some highly secure, top level government computer being broken into. So it only stands to reason that if hackers can break into highly secure Pentagon computers, yours too may also be vulnerable.

New Concepts In Business Recovery Planning

So what if your computers were broken into and all of the data in them deleted or altered. Do you have any backup plan to go to to find a quick solution if this were to happen to your business computers?

Disaster Recovery Planing Software

This is why your business recovery planning should include some type of disaster recovery software that can allow you to quickly replace any and all of the data that is stored in your companies computer files.

How It Functions To Insure Your Business Data

Disaster recovery planning software functions by quite literally copying any and all business related data as it is being generated and transferring it for storage at an off-site location.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Janet_Jos_Shultz

Did you know that businesses lose approximately $250 billion per year through inefficient billing systems and practices? More than 80% of all businesses are overcharged annually without their knowledge! Your home business or small business could very well be within this percentage.

Don’t become a victim of poor business management. Good business economics comes from smart management. Knowing about overcharges and how to prevent them will greatly improve your business finance management today and for the future.

What are Overcharges?

Overcharges are additional charges that you may have paid unawares on certain types of bills. These “additional” charges are often accounting or typing mistakes, hidden fees that you were not informed about, or even fees tacked onto bills by a dishonest company. There are many types of overcharges. Here are just a few that are common with businesses.

Workers Comp Overcharges

If you have workers compensation issues at your workplace, then you may also have mistakes that are costing you money each year. These mistakes are often discovered in payrolls, experience modifications, classifications, or NCCI rules applications. There may also be insurance company overcharges. These “mistakes” can cost your company thousands of dollars per year if not caught in time.

Telecom Overcharges

Some studies show that almost 80% of telephone bills contain errors that cost American businesses millions of dollars per year. Telecom overcharges have become a major problem because of the variety of telecom services offered today. Many corporate businesses and franchises must keep up with long distance calling and toll-free calls, cell phones, answering services, telemarketers, and customer service calls. It’s no wonder telecom overcharges are so common.

Telephone bills have become so complicated to read that many ignore the details and just write a check for the bill! What’s the result? Businesses lose hard-earned money.

Income Tax Overcharges

Businesses can also lose money through income tax overpayments. This can occur whether it’s an individual who owns a small home-based business or a small business owner with 5 to 100 employees. The IRS rules change almost every year, so keeping up with income taxes can be a difficult task – even for a financial consultant or accountant!

Tax overcharges can and do occur every year for individuals and business owners. What many don’t realize is that these overcharges can turn into hefty refunds if submitted to the IRS as amended tax returns. Your business could have tax overcharges waiting to be claimed!

Rent, Leases and Utilities

Other areas where overcharges can occur are with business offices or building rent, leases, or utilities. In cases where the landlord includes utilities with your rent or lease agreement, he may be getting a discount on utilities, but charging you, the tenant, full price. Therefore, you might possibly negotiate a better rate if this is found to be true. This could result in tremendous savings every month for your business.

Revenue Recovery Solutions

There are many ways to investigate and recover lost revenue; however, it can be very time-consuming to audit all of your business information and bills each month. Luckily, there are many companies such as AmCorp Management that specialize in revenue recovery. They keep up with business news and investigate your bills for you to find overcharges and recover them for you. They provide business services that save you time so you can test new business ideas and possibly increase your bottom line each year through revenue recovery.

Consider revenue recovery to be a lifesaver, not a waste of time. You might be surprised at the money that has been hidden in overcharges year after year.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Robertson

A Gartner report suggests that 40% of small and medium-sized organizations that cannot retrieve data lost in a disaster within 24 hours will eventually close. The US National Fire Protection Agency reported that 43% of companies that suffer a fire never resume business.

Many industry-mandated and regulatory best practices today require a written business continuity (BC) or disaster recovery (DR) plan. Even industries that do not have restrictive regulations in place can realize significant customer loss after a disaster. In short, a well thought out disaster recovery plan can make or break the success of a company facing a disaster, and more importantly the plan needs to be updated and tested regularly.

Disaster recovery is not necessarily a daunting task, but rather involves relatively simple and inexpensive technologies. These technology solutions are widely available, reasonably priced, and fairly well known, and include:

* An assortment of cloud-based and managed-service options
* Low-cost virtual tape libraries or disk-to-disk solutions
* Communication solutions encompassing Wi-Fi, smartphones, social networks, cellular and shared online environments

While simple in nature, a good disaster recovery plan does require proper preparation and ongoing maintenance to ensure success. Since disasters by nature are unexpected, the technology needs to be ready and updated, tested. And, the disaster recovery plan needs to have the full commitment of the entire organization – especially senior management.

With the proper time and preparation, you can rest more comfortably knowing that you have the right people, data, and plans. These six best practices should help in that endeavor:

* Get a thorough business impact assessment
* Source qualified disaster recovery and/or business continuity planners and project managers
* Invest the appropriate time, money and resources, which will vary depending on your business model and vertical
* Plan for alternate lines of communication
* Test often and thoroughly and make changes as needed
* Keep your plans accurate, current and using the best technologies your budget can provide

Today, almost every organization is dependent on computerized information systems – for better or worse – for electronic data management and commerce. While streamlining business processes, it has also created huge liability for companies that are unprepared for a disaster. Don’t risk it!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Nuss

However, managed hosting is perhaps the most common function of many managed services provider. The provider bills the business they are providing the services for a fixed amount on a monthly basis. They provide IT services that would otherwise be provided in-house by existing or additional staff. They backup any data that is on the website and any data offered by customers visiting the website to benefit the business in case the website crashes. The customer data also allows the business to stay in touch with their customers. The managed services provider also continuously monitors the website in order to prevent security breaches. That way if there is a security breach, the managed services provider can rectify the issue right then and there. The managed services provider is also there to provide any technical assistance to the business or the customer if any issues come about with the web hosting.

It is obvious that a managed services provider can do a wide range of things for the business that the business would need an entire IT staff to do. Additional tasks that they perform include managed remote access, network monitoring, network management, scanning for vulnerabilities, firewall management, securing the e-mail and messaging system, tracking incidents, and server management. These are a few amongst the many tasks that would be required by the company that the company is outsourcing when hiring a managed services provider.

Benefits to the business

A managed services provider takes many tasks off of the hands of the business. In fact, the different payment models that managed services providers make available to the businesses that they serve is usually cheaper than having to hire one or two full-time employees to take care of these tasks or having existing employees add these tasks to their work loads. There may be times in which issues come about and those employees must focus on the managed hosting while putting their other job responsibilities on the backburner. However, some managed hosting operations are so large that it takes a number of employees to manage the system and everything that comes with it. This avoids having to pay higher salaries, additional salaries, training costs, and prevents staff members from being overworked.

Another benefit is that a managed services provider focuses on the task at hand because their job is to manage services for the business so that the business can focus on customer satisfaction, monitor costs better, save money by not having to manage their managed hosting themselves, protect vital information, and focus on making the applications satisfactory for the customer. They have no additional tasks other than focusing on the success of their client’s managed hosting.

Overall benefits

So the overall benefits are quite obvious in terms of convenience and cost. What’s really important is that the managed services provider is not consumed with other tasks because their job is to ensure the business they provide services for remains running smoothly in terms of their managed hosting. Successful managed hosting means the business can be more profitable and the consumer’s view of their business will be one of trust and satisfaction.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amy_Nutt

One thing to note is that the risk of business failure still remains, whether in boom or recession. This calls for proper structures and strategies not only to keep you going but also to facilitate profitability and business growth. The business world today is on the run and, like many other sectors; there is need for managers to update themselves with the constantly changing economic trends. Every manager must therefore be committed to switch off from unsuccessful management practices in favor of more efficient and glossy methods.

Investors who have already put themselves together will have the advantage of being the first to reap the benefits of the recovery and hence huge capacity for advancement. However, recovery may be casting a dark cloud over many companies. Many managers may be left in a recession mode because they were not prepared or aware of the developments in the business cycle. The top managers of every company should now turn their focus from long term business plans to short term goals that aim at quick revival.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Reuben_Ochieng

These days most employees rely on electronic systems to do their job and lost or damaged files can spell disaster. However while IT systems are often carefully considered and any perceived emergencies planned for, paper records can frequently be neglected. It’s difficult to pinpoint why this is except to say that perhaps manual records are considered unimportant when compared to expensive IT systems. Perhaps it is also the case that the sheer physicality of a paper record makes people (wrongly) believe it is not as important to safeguard as a computer file that could more easily be destroyed or corrupted. But to take this viewpoint is ill advised and short sighted.

Many organisations are under a legal obligation to keep certain records for a specified period of time. For example, financial institutions are now required to keep mortgage loan files for up to ten years after the loan has been repaid. Some medical records must be stored throughout the life of the patient and government institutions are now required to keep certain records for up to 50 years. Companies pay a high price for inadequate record keeping. In January 2003 The Bank of Scotland was fined £1.25m for breaching anti-money laundering rules on the identification of customers because it had failed to retain a copy of customer ID or a record of where it was kept. Often there is a legal requirement to keep the original paper document even when it exists electronically and in any action, the legal weight of records will be greater if the original version is produced. The Business Archives Council, which promotes the preservation of business records of historical importance, gives some other reasons why it can be prudent to save original documents.

Among their points are:

* Transparent corporate governance

Good record-keeping is an integral part of transparent corporate governance. The implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US has brought heightened scrutiny of an organisation’s internal controls and practices. Trustworthy and accurate records serve as a bedrock for a company’s reporting systems and ensure that they comply with best practice

* A key part of Corporate Social Responsibility

Caring for your heritage can be a key part of a Corporate Social Responsibility policy. Businesses have impacted on the lives of their staff, customers, shareholders and on the communities in which they operate. Business archives record how lives have been affected and changed. Some companies have publicly acknowledged that their own histories are an important piece in the jigsaw of the past and that they have a duty of care to their own archives. Making business archives accessible to the public is a real contribution to the community.

* Brand Building

The past can be used to support present performance. Archives add detail and depth to the public image of a company, differentiating it from the competition. Celebrating significant anniversaries or birthdays brings the long-standing nature and the achievements of the company to the fore. Historic information and images can also be used to support particular brands emphasising their position in the market place.

* A market for nostalgia

Exploiting your heritage can bring in revenue. Companies with well known advertising and packaging logos and images can licence their reproductions in all kinds of ways: the Guinness Toucan, Colman’s mustard and Pears soap are just a few examples of well known images that bring in money for their owners.

* Education

Archives can be used within a business to inform and educate new recruits about a company’s history and successes and pass on company values and principles. Archives can also be used as an educational resource by learners of all ages – some companies have produced very popular and highly regarded educational resources aimed at schoolchildren.

Clearly some of these points would not be put under the heading of ‘Business Critical’ but they do give further background as to why paper records can be so important.

The first rule of thumb for any organisation should be to asses their records according to the following criteria: business value, legal value, administrative value, historical value. The records can then be classed as vital, important, useful or non-essential. For those records deemed vital, the next step is to ensure that the storage of those records is an integral part of your business continuity plan and this means considering how and where they are stored. In exactly the same way as you would safeguard your IT systems and electronic records, consideration should be given to the possible disaster scenarios and how you can guard against loss or damage of those records.

For many companies the first obvious factor to think about is physical location. A Morgan Stanley Brokers note in June 2003 estimated that 70% of businesses are storing records on their own premises. Clearly this has huge implications should that office be subject to any kind of negative event. The horrific and devastating events of 9/11 showed all too clearly the potential risks of storing vital business records on site with many thousands of important documents destroyed. But if not on site then where is the best place? Some companies discount off site storage for those records that are deemed ‘active’ since they can be concerned that, should they need them, it will be a difficult process to retrieve them but any professional records management company should be able to deliver a document back to you within 24 hours and/or a scanned electronic version within a few hours.

If that is not acceptable then consideration should be given to copying the record and placing the original off site. The same factors apply to long term or ‘inactive’ storage. When deciding on an off site storage provider another important point to consider includes the environmental conditions of the site. Paper needs to be stored in cool consistent temperatures with a tight humidity band. It is worth reading through BS5454 since this sets the environmental standard for the storage of archival documents. Other points to assess include the risk of flood, fire or terrorist attack and, should any of these occur, how does the records management company in question plan ahead to handle it.

The National Archives previously known as the Public Records Office, has some of the country’s most important records. Acting as the UK government’s official archive, The National Archives looks after many thousands of documents containing 900 years of history from the Domesday Book to the present. The National Archives keep the majority of their material at their headquarters in Kew but they also keep a portion of their archive off site at DeepStore. They suggest that, in order to minimise damage to paper records, organisations should consider the following when planning for disaster.

* The best way to deal with potential disasters is to stop them happening. A first step is to identify and assess sources of potential risk in terms of the probability of an incident occurring, and likely impact if it does, including the costs of recovery.

* The process should include a detailed inspection of the premises and operational activities on site, and consultation with staff in each work area, particularly those such as caretakers or cleaners who have day to day responsibility for the building. It may also be necessary to consult specialist external sources of advice from individuals such as fire prevention offices, security advisers, insurance providers and a qualified conservator.

* Risk assessments should be reviewed at least annually to take account of changed circumstances and a systematic logging of any previous incidents will help to refine those assessments.

* In addition, it is important to be aware of temporary increases in risk, e.g. due to the presence of contractors on-site, extreme weather conditions, unusual activity in adjacent premises. Common sources of risk to paper records (of varying degrees of seriousness) include extreme weather, leaking roofs, plumbing problems, smoking, poor storage of inflammable materials, malfunctioning electrical wiring, lighting, arson or vandalism (up to half of UK fire are started deliberately), gas leaks, industrial accidents in nearby premises and terrorism.

Anna Buelow, Head of Preservation, at The National Archives gives some advice as to how a company should tackle a problem if, despite planning to avoid it, the worst occurs and paper records are damaged by water. She explains, “The prime concern in a disaster situation is to take what measures are necessary to salvage or limit the damage to as many of the records as possible. Ideally, the recovery process should start with a preliminary assessment of those documents in the affected area, designated as being the most valuable or important, identified by the first senior member of staff to come on site.
“For slightly damaged material it may be possible to air dry the items. This should be done in a large, well ventilated area and supervised by an experienced professional if possible. Anything that is saturated should be removed from boxes, packed in polythene bags and labeled. They should then be frozen and dealt with by a specialist agency.”

And what about fire damage? Specialist company Harwell Restoration Services offer the following advice, “Depending on the design of a given building during a fire the smoke residues can travel great distances from the source of the actual fire, potentially creating widespread damage, even if the fire itself only affected one room. Within an office or library, this smoke can present an immense problem, as without restoration, the damaged paper will not safe or practical to use. Fire damage is restorable in the vast majority of cases. Tightly packed paper will not necessarily burn and damage, chiefly caused by smoke residue, is usually restricted to the outer edges, leaving the information inside the book block, archive box or file in tact.”

So when considering off site records management companies it is important to make sure that they have first rate storage facilities. Look carefully at all their systems and ask lots of questions. It’s also worth thinking about where they are sited since even if their building or unit seems safe, a fire or flood in a neighbouring unit could cause real problems.

Despite the emergence of the so-called ‘electronic age, it is clear that there will be a need to store paper records for many years to come. In the light of this is it vital that they are treated as a key part of the business and every company’s business continuity plan should take this into account.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Holmes

The three stages of the G.A.S.

1 The Alarm stage:
On first exposure to the stressor:

The initial feeling of shock. The “general call to arms” of the team (or individual) under stress. Characterised by feelings of discomfort and a temporary drop in performance.

2 The Adaptation stage:
On continued exposure to the stressor:

The constructive, adaptive change: characterised by a sharp improvement in performance, feelings of excitement, motivation and well being.

The Adaptation is a specific response to the imposed stressor.
The Adaptation stage can be prolonged, but note this: it is not infinite. The Adaptation stage has limits.

3 The Exhaustion stage:
On overexposure to the stressor:
Marks the limit of the teams (or individual’s) adaptive capacity. The exhaustion stage is characterised by a sudden loss of performance, motivation and resistance to illness.

Implications to action:
1. You should memorise and be able to coherently explain the elements of the G.A.S. to others.
2. You should take the G.A.S. into account when you manage others
3. You should try to maintain the adaptive response (phase 2) in the team.
4. You should watch for signs that the team or any member is approaching the exhaustion phase (phase 3)

Hans Selye (1907- 1982) was the first to identify this principle, which is true for everyone:
“You can work hard, or you can work long. But nobody can work often, intensely, and for long periods without paying a price”.

If the intensity of the stressor is high, then the duration and / or frequency of the stressors must decrease. If the intensity is lower than the duration and frequency may increase accordingly.

Anyone who frequently exposes themselves to high intensity stress, for extended periods, eventually meets the inevitable consequence: Burnout and loss of productivity.

All managers therefore, should learn to balance the intensity, duration and frequency of work stress, such that the team remains permanently in the Adaptation phase: Leading to an increase in productivity.

Recovery ability
Recovery ability one of the solutions to the stress management problem:

What is “Recovery Ability”?
Recovery ability is a measure of the team’s capacity to absorb, “metabolise” and bounce back from any intense, prolonged or frequent stressor.
Recovery ability is a conscious development, an important part of your management philosophy.
Recovery ability is composed of six elements:

1. organisational
2. social
3. intellectual
4. emotional
5. physiological
6. nutritional

They combine to produce a system of team strength.

Recovery ability is that which allows the team to bear almost any pressure (that they are likely to experience), and take it more easily “in their stride”.

As opposed to:

- Over dramatizing
- Over reacting
- Under-performing, or
- Going sick

Recovery ability is pre-emptive
You should help the team to develop its recovery ability BEFORE they need it.

Recovery ability does not work retrospectively
You cannot easily develop recovery ability in the middle of a panic attack.

WARNING:

Hardy anyone thinks of developing their recovery ability.
The members of your team should join the ranks of those that do.

Implications to action
Help the team to improve its recovery ability: i.e. it’s capacity to metabolise stress and come back stronger.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Farmer

New Dangers To assess In Business Continuity Management Planning

In the past when a sudden disaster hit a business, it usually came in the form of something like a fire or a burglary. However; with so may of todays businesses relying on data that is stored in their computers, new dangers are now being presented.

A Catastrophic Loss Of Business Data

A catastrophic loss of business data can in only a few seconds leave a business irreparably crippled. In fact, it is just this type of disaster that led to the failure of over one-hundred business that operated out of the twin towers after 9/11.

Dangers To Todays Business Owners

Their computers were destroyed and without any backup data things like client billing lists and asset records were completely lost forever. So while the planes hitting the buildings did physical damage to the business infrastructure, it was the destruction of their data that was the final nail in their coffin.

New Disaster Recovery Software

It’s scenarios just like these that have led to the development of disaster recovery software. What disaster recovery software does is automatically create and store duplicates of all of a businesses data as it is being created and stored it in a secure off site location. This means that if a business should ever encounter a situation where their data has been destroyed or made unavailable, duplicate data is always within reach.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Janet_Jos_Shultz

Most Information Technology professionals today would be familiar with this phrase or a similar variation. Why? Because Information Technology projects can be large and complex making them susceptible to unexpected problems. It has certainly been my experience that most large projects and organizations factor for the ‘best laid schemes of mice and men’ variable in their change management and risk management practices.

But even the security offered by change management, risk management, backups and redundancy is not enough these days for many organizations that stake their survival on online services or transactions. This is primarily because backups and redundancy are usually designed to cater for a single component failure. For example, if a network link drops then a secondary link takes over. But what happens if multiple components fail at once due to a natural disaster, sabotage, security incident, health related outbreak or core services failure?

The result from such a catastrophic failure can be devastating to a business, especially if there has been no planning on how to restore what took years to build up in just a few short hours or days.

This type of planning is the domain of Disaster Recovery (DR) plans. Even the most stable and well designed networks are not immune to the aforementioned risks and many businesses mitigate this risk through the creation, implementation and testing of disaster recovery planning.

DR plans should cover as many aspects of service restoration as possible. This includes but is not limited to;

· The absence of key personnel
· A communication plan
· A risk assessment
· Technical tools
· Key contact details
· Procedures

Most importantly, DR plans are a living document. That is they are never complete due to the fact that the business environment around them changes and those changes have to be reflected back into the plan in order to keep it up to date and effective.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andres_Villalva