If the COVID19 pandemic taught us anything it’s that a plan to handle everything that can go wrong is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a need-to-have. Between natural disasters, rolling blackouts, and supply chain disruptions, Murphy’s Law is now the new normal. It’s time to make sure your plan is up-to-date and ready at a moment’s notice, because that’s all we get.
What is IT Service Continuity Management? IT service continuity management (ITSCM) helps you develop IT infrastructure recovery plans. This helps support overall business continuity management (BCM) plans and timeframes. IT service continuity management is also one of five components of ITIL service delivery.
Service Continuity Plans should be developed in conjunction with a Business Impact Analysis and an assessment of your current capabilities and services. Ensuring you’ll have everything you need going forward, come what may, is crucial. Priorities and recovery time objectives can and should be developed during an IT assessment. Comprehensive IT recovery strategies will include restoring hardware, applications, connectivity and data in time to meet the needs of the overall business recovery.
An IT assessment can help you answer questions and make contingency plans before disaster strikes. Can all your employees work from home effective immediately? How often is your data backed up – and what is the back up for the back up? How will it impact your customers and what can you do to make sure delivery is seamless? How will you stay connected if the power supply goes out? If the answer to these questions is “no” or “I don’t know” – then it’s time to get cracking.
No matter how big or small your business is, there is no substitute for Service Continuity Plans. Developing these plans don’t have to be expensive or time consuming and having one will save you money and sleepless nights down the road. You probably just went through hoops getting your team setup as remote workers and supporting the business to do the same. With all of these steps fresh in your mind, now is a good time to formalize these steps for the next time something like this requires a team to work remotely. OwlPoint is an expert in IT assessments and Service Continuity Planning. Let’s work together to ensure you’re ready for anything.