4 Methods Of Planning For Business Downtime
One of the most difficult periods to deal with in the life of any business is that of managing unexpected downtime. It might be that your IT systems are down, or part of your website isn’t working as well, or maybe a difficulty with your production process has led to a certain volume or products turning out faulty. Some of these efforts will require preparation, some will need to be applied after the fact in order to bring everyone on the same page. In this post, we hope that a combination of these factors can help you sail back to smoother waters even if your firm is caught in a temporary storm:
One of the most difficult periods to deal with in the life of any business is that of managing unexpected downtime. It might be that your IT systems are down, or part of your website isn’t working as well, or maybe a difficulty with your production process has led to a certain volume or products turning out faulty.
This is not uncommon, and so it’s worth managing a few worthwhile measures in order to better get a handle on issues as they’re presented, and to limit the damage that this can cause. If you can achieve this, then you’re more likely to enact a worthwhile solution and gain the understanding of your clients or customers.
Some of these efforts will require preparation, some will need to be applied after the fact in order to bring everyone on the same page. In this post, we hope that a combination of these factors can help you sail back to smoother waters even if your firm is caught in a temporary storm:
Immediate, Transparent Messaging & Timelines
It’s good to have a system in place that can immediately help your customers or clients see if there’s a problem with the service being provided to them. A simple status checker on your website, hooked to another domain name, can work wonders here.
Furthermore, an off-site checker, such as your support page on Twitter, can update its followers regarding downtime, maintenance work being conducted, and when you expect a fix to be in place. This can provide a reassuring voice to your business issue. In fact, it’s not uncommon for many to prefer a business that remains completely vocal and attentive of their audience, even during downtime, than one which may rarely suffer from downtime but rarely messages or updates when that takes place. It’s all about transparency.
Pre-Planned IT Management
It’s important to make sure you’re using the best support network, such as dedicated IT support that works brilliantly with your day to day operational capacity, ensuring that your hosting issues will rarely if ever be affected by cybersecurity issues, a lack of security updates, or sheer incompetence..
With a team of dedicated server maintenance staff working around the clock, you can be sure that even a small hiccup in your service, or issues that need to be referred higher, will be properly maintained and considered. IT maintenance measures like this may also offer a more fundamental preparatory provision in that by structuring your staff terminals and helping you with your cloud hosting platform, they have deeper, permissive root-control access to your systems so they can more easily diagnose the issue and apply a fix. This is why most modern businesses utilize managed IT services in their area, because they know the benefit to their downtime is unlike anything else.
Staff Policies & Processes
Ensuring staff policies and processes are in place for reporting and dealing with downtime is essential. When they notice that a certain provision is down, making sure a report is made in a secondary IT reporting platform, such as by notifying your in-house IT department or the work chat within your instant messaging profile, along with sharing the error codes you’re greeted with is key.
Designing staff policies so they understand how to operate from this point forward, such as shutting down terminals, or referring to previously-made cloud backups of certain documents for a reference can help them retain their productivity even at this time. When staff have a streamlined response effort then they can feel less worried about the downtime, instead waiting for a direct and appropriate fix.
Appropriate Backup Efforts
Of course, backing up our business documents is essential when it comes to managing our IT network, be that storing documents or synchronizing employee accounts to a specific terminal or device. While downtime is being worked on, it can be worthwhile to have an internal hard drive structure that allows temporary access to template documents, product planning, and more.
Alternatively, setting certain cloud files for offline access can ensure that certain members of your team, like your HR department, can more readily access the documents they need even in an event like this, helping them sustain their work even when the broader system is offline and being patched up. After all, just because we have temporary downtime it doesn’t mean our staff become static, with their needs no longer asking to be met.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily prevent and plan business downtime.
Business downtime can be too expensive. Just one day offline can be oodles if not ton of pounds lost. And this only gets poorer as time passes by. This is why it is vital to have steps in place to battle downtime, assemble in a complete mishap recovery scheme. Now that you are conscious of some of the very usual causes of business downtime, it is essential to put some methods in place to make sure that your business can rise and running again as early as possible. The initial thing you need to do is assemble a mishap recovery scheme. This is a document that will shape all of the steps you require to take should a mishap failure takes place. There are three key characteristics your scheme should include: the facts, contact, and people. In respect to facts, your scheme should include backup choices and daily reviews. You also need to determine on intercompany talks techniques to use if you cannot get through your office, and make a contact list you can open the door if you are online. Ultimately, for the part as regard to people, you need to determine the roles and challenges.