Why Business Continuity Planning Must Take a Front Row Seat
pay dividends when the time comes to use these extreme measures. Just as we don’t wait until we’re about to be in a car wreck to fasten our seatbelts, MSPs should be helping customers get things in place now for the trials and tribulations to come.
Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions should be table stakes for every organization, but some are still reluctant to invest in these services. The promise of cloud computing has also clouded their understanding of how their data is being backed up and how fast and easy it is to restore it after an event.
Cloud-based SaaS apps that businesses rely on–including G Suite, Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office 365–are fabulous for empowering a remote workforce to be productive, but it also puts essential data in the hands of third parties. Employing solutions such as disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) provides a path back to productivity in the event of a major disruption.
With increasing numbers of employees working remotely, a comprehensive remote management and monitoring (RMM) solution is a must. All those distributed systems need security patches and upgrades more than ever, not to mention carefully restricted access to sensitive systems and data.
IT must be able to keep track of who’s got what and when they’re accessing the network. While remote work is a huge asset to the workforce, it does increase opportunities for bad actors to compromise corporate security. Other defensive measures, including single sign-on and two-factor security, are more important than ever when physical restrictions are no longer applicable.
Temporary Crisis, Long-Term Solutions
Although many MSPs and their customers had to jump into the deep end thanks to COVID-19, this is more than simply a sink-or-swim moment. The protocols, procedures and tools put into place now will enable ongoing workforce flexibility far beyond the immediate disruption.
Distributed workforces were a trend before this all started, and there’s likely no putting the genie back in the bottle for many organizations. Initiating and executing a comprehensive BCP should pay dividends long after our masks are collecting dust and we’re back to singing along at concerts and cheering on the home team at stadiums.
Working with vendors offering a wide array of solutions to facilitate a secure, recoverable and distributed IT infrastructure can simplify things for MSPs and their staff. It can also reduce MSP costs and increase the profitability of these expanded service offerings.
Don’t let this crisis go to waste! Engage your customers today to identify current gaps and build out a business continuity strategy everyone will feel good about today and tomorrow. Learn more about leveraging business continuity planning to combat a crisis.
Jim Lippie is GM & SVP, Partner Development.
This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.
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