When it comes to business continuity planning, it’s extremely important to account for timeliness and quick execution. However, an alarming number of businesses, particularly those in the SME category, don’t have a disaster recovery strategy that can be deployed rapidly. Reducing downtime is essential to minimizing the economic impact of a disruptive disaster, and this is an area in which MSPs can prove their worth to clients.

Business Continuity: Startling Stats

The Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council recently released the findings from its 2014 Disaster Preparedness Benchmark Survey, which found that about three-quarters of surveyed companies do not have adequate business continuity or disaster recovery plans in place. Businesses that suffered continuity interruptions last year also posted significant losses, evidenced by the following statistics:

• 36 percent of polled organizations lost at least one vital application for a period of several hours in 2014
• Nearly 20 percent of surveyed businesses lost at least one vital application for one or more days in 2014
• 25 percent of respondents were partially or fully unable to access data center repositories for one or more days in 2014
• Approximately 20 percent of companies affected by downtime suffered financial losses in excess of $50,000

Some of the surveyed businesses lost very large sums of money, with the most damaging losses exceeding $5 million.

Clearly, business continuity and disaster recovery should be high priorities for businesses of all sizes, and companies working in all industries. More and more, enterprises are relying on MSPs to make key contributions of their continuity plans, and this is an area in which MSPs can really show their true worth to their clients and build the foundations of a mutually beneficial ongoing relationship.

Business Continuity: RTO vs. RPO

The Recovery Time Objective (RTO)/Recovery Point Objective (RPO) dichotomy can be used to illustrate the importance of a quick, responsive reaction to an interruption or disaster. These metrics track recovery objectives in two ways: RTO considers the proposition in terms of the amount of time that can pass before operations will be disrupted, while RPO quantifies how and when data losses will disable an organization.

There is no universal way of applying RTO and RPO principles to a business continuity plan; rather, these principles must be considered on a case-by-case basis. However, the end objective is always the same: to pinpoint the amount of time and/or the amount of data that can be lost before serious disruption will result, and to build a disaster recovery plan around those time and data points.

MSPs can also use RTO and RPO principles to:

• Sell clients on the value of time-sensitive disaster recovery and business continuity services
• Demonstrate just how valuable time is to businesses
• Enhance trust between the business and the MSP through honesty and managed expectations

Cloud-based business continuity strategies are emerging as a leading trend, but most experts stress that they should form part, but not all, of a comprehensive disaster recovery program. MSPs can draw on the cloud and other technologies to help clients achieve an increased sense of security, all while strengthening the bilateral relationship.

Contact eXemplify today to discuss comprehensive, customized disaster recovery and business continuity plans for your business.