We never know when an incident or disaster is going to strike. Progressive organizations recognize that they need to be ready when disaster strikes. While we hope that you never have to use an Incident Response Plan (IRP) or a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), the reality is you will likely be confronted with an incident of some sort that needs to be addressed.
A comprehensive Incident Response Plan and a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan can make the difference between successfully withstanding a disaster or incident, or finding yourself out-of-business.
When disaster strikes, be it natural or man-made, preparation is the key to recovery and assuring your employees, customers and other stakeholders that you can continue as an entity. The worst time to plan the recovery activities is during the crisis.
A comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan will:
Similar to a Disaster Recovery Plan, the Business Continuity Plan is designed to give organizations assurance that not only their Information Technology needs can be recovered gracefully, but expands further than just IT, covering broad operational requirements that could include: finance, human resources, sales and marketing, and more. Depending on the organization’s needs, Business Continuity Plans can be focused on the overall organization or narrowed to specific environments (i.e. division, geographic location, office) or functional area. Business Impact Analyses (BIAs) are used to understand the overall effect that an outage affects that environment.
Starting with one of Vestige’s designed templates (DRP/BCP), Vestige holds one or more Discovery meetings with relevant stakeholders within the organization. Through a series of questions, discussions and the organization providing pertinent information, Vestige will create a robust plan that is accepted by the organization and placed into service. Vestige is also available to train the organization’s response team.
The ability for the organization to recover and continue business is more than simply having a plan. Testing the plan in simulated exercises is an effective means for the organization to gain comfort in knowing that the plans are solid, that those that are involved are not only aware of the plan, have had exposure to it, and have been trained and tested to ensure they know their role and how to carry that role out. In addition, testing, such as conducting tabletop exercises (TTX) provides feedback as to how effective the plans are with the ability to address weaknesses before they arise in a real disaster.
Vestige’s Tabletop exercises are custom-designed for the organization to provide realistic scenarios that you could face in a real incident. These typically last 90-120 minutes and include not only the introduction and conducting the test, but a hotwash/debrief for participants, followed by a written report highlighting the organization’s performance and offering constructive feedback, gap assessments and recommendations on strengthening the plan for the future.
Contact Vestige for Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Planning & Testing today.
