01-11-13 | Blog Post
On Tuesday, January 15th, 2pm EST, Online Tech’s Systems Support Manager Steve Aiello, CISSP will be doing the first installment of our three-part webinar series on Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.
I had the opportunity to speak with Steve about what drove his interest in business continuity. He says his love of IT came out of compliance. Much of his career has been spent working closely with auditors, and having extensive compliance training. As this grew into an interest in cybersecurity, Steve saw a broader perspective: “Cybersecurity gets all the press, but it’s just a small piece of protecting a business. No firewall will save you from fire, flooding, or a flu epidemic that keeps your workers out of the office.”
Forty percent of businesses don’t reopen after a disaster. Twenty-five percent more fail within a year, according to FEMA. With those unlikely odds, a business continuity plan, including a disaster recovery guideline, can help keep businesses out of that dark statistic.
But say you don’t live in tornado alley. Say you don’t have to worry about earthquakes, flooding, hurricanes, forest fires. There isn’t a blatant disaster threatening your business. A business continuity plan is more than just recovering from a disaster. It could be as simple as how a company survives an owner’s retiring. Steve explains that a CEO needs to “take yourself out of the picture and think about the business as an entity without you in it. The business has to be able to succeed without you. Plan around that.”
Steve said of business continuity, “it appeals to me because it protects a company that does right by its employees and clients.” In the wake of a disaster or large change, these plans do more than help a business’s reputation. It helps keep employees working and paid. It helps keep clients from losing those essential products or services. It helps keep your business alive for all the people who have a stake in it.
So join us next Tuesday at 2pm EST, and find out more. If you haven’t yet signed up for the webinar series, follow the link here to register.
