Today, companies face unprecedented exposures that if a corporation cannot respond quickly to the catastrophe, it can easily collapse. Mendonca et al. (2019) reiterate that the critical distinction between a failing and a prospering business is the level of preparedness and planning. Disaster recovery procedures are chronological processes that guide a business organization regarding how to protect its IT infrastructure in the occurrence of a disaster. Adversity recovery procedures describe the quick work resumption scenarios, reducing disaster aftermath interruptions. The disaster recovery procedure provides a comprehensive framework concerning the exact, consistent actions that a business company can take before, during, and after a disaster. Such procedures are equal to a business continuity plan as they both outline how a business can navigate and continue during and after an unplanned disruption. Therefore, the business reasons for formal disaster recovery procedures are enhancing cost efficiency, increasing employee productivity, customer retention, developing a better scalability understanding, and avoiding awful last-minute decision-making during and after a disaster.
Notably, formal disaster recovery procedures enhance cost efficiency. According to Wallace and Webber (2017), catastrophe recovery procedures develop preventive measures that critically reduce the chances of human-made disasters from occurring within the organization. The business continuity plan outlines the various detective measures that aim to identify unwanted events quickly, helping a corporation reduce unnecessary spending on purchasing other gadgets and starting from scratch. For instance, a business continuity plan offers an alternative that IT employees in an organization can store its data for access even after a breakdown and the computers’ theft. Philosophically, a continuous strategy ensures that business never stops after the occurrence of unforeseen havoc. The procedures prevent an organization from incurring other costs of starting the project afresh but instead continuing from the same point before the computers’ theft. Thus, recovery techniques develop corrective measures that enhance lost data restoration, allowing for normalcy resumption in the disaster aftermath.
Additionally, a disaster recovery strategy is prudent as it increases employee productivity. Song et al. (2017) opine that a calamity retrieval plan assigns distinct roles to different personnel in a business organization, enhancing productivity and effectiveness. A disaster plan can authorize more than two employees to work and handle a specific risk, whereby the redundancy proves to be disparagingly beneficial to the business. For instance, when multiple employees deal with safeguarding the organization’s servers as directed in the business continuity plan, chances of hacking are minimized. Each of the personnel brings different ideas and expertise into the server protection issue, making it difficult for hacking. The aspect of multiple employees working on a single entity makes the work done efficiently, enhancing an organization’s recovery even after the pandemic. When more employees work as a group, it improves the quality of service, hence a critical way of attracting customers. Connectedly, disaster recovery measures increase the productivity rate among employees.
Besides, the disaster recovery program assures a business company a more remarkable customer retention experience. Wallace and Webber (2017) further allude that clients expect nothing short of reliability and perfection. Arguably, the present business world is very competitive, where companies compete for quality of services and management to make customers happy and subsequently develop loyalty to the company. The recovery strategies ensure that an organization maintains its quality despite the different unprecedented circumstances that it is experiencing at that particular moment. The recovery plans also assure customers that the business is not destined to collapse or fail any time soon, hence making it they’re favorite. Customers do not like associating themselves with failure but success. An organization’s ability to survive hard times successfully is a form of branding, hence grasping the trust of the existing customers and even attracting new ones. For instance, clients increase their loyalty to an organization when the IT department assures them that their details are safe even after the company computers have been stolen. Impartially, the disaster recovery program is beneficial as it guarantees a business of customer retention.
Moreover, catastrophe recovery procedures give a business company a restored scalability understanding. As Mendonca et al.’s (2019) harangue, planning a disaster recovery program enhances innovative solutions. For instance, technologies like backups and cloud-based storage by IT personnel enhance archive maintenance and backup effectiveness. Cloud computing is scalable, hence offering flexibility compared to maintaining an offsite or onsite data center. It ensures switch completion before the striking of a disaster. As the company’s technological demands adapt, it hikes the storage solutions. Arguably, the disaster recovery program engages original research and subsequent comparison of possibilities. Business organizations that participate in the strategic research process excellently uncover their data storage solutions. The catastrophe management formula streamlines IT functioning, helping in superfluous hardware elimination and equally reducing the human error risk (Houston et al., 2015). As such, a company focuses on enhancing resilience and profitability as opposed to preparing to recover after the disaster. Henceforth, the catastrophe recovery procedures give an organization a better scalability understanding.
Furthermore, a recovery plan enhances the avoidance of making a last-minute decision during a disaster, potentially damaging. Last-minutes choices by both the management board and employees can be misleading, pushing the company to the lane of failure (Zhou et al., 2018). During an unprecedented disaster, the adrenaline of both the management and the employees is always high. In this way, it means that the person might make decisions or opt for a specific option that is inappropriate for that moment. The catastrophe management plan gives an authentic and straightforward process that can be followed during a disaster, hence restraining its decisions. For instance, a business organization that does not have a disaster recovery plan can decide to dispose of some IT employees during a disaster as a means of stabilizing itself again, financially. If there was a disaster management strategy, then the organization could comprehend that IT employees are vital in the success of a company, considering that they are the ones that keep every organization-related information. Thus, a disaster recovery plan ensures that a company avoids reckless last-minute decisions during or after a disaster, which might be detrimental to success.
In conclusion, the business reasons for formal disaster recovery procedures are to enhance cost efficiency, increase employee productivity, customer retention, develop a better scalability understanding, and consequently avoid damaging last-minute decisions during disasters. It is imperative as it gives employees and customers a great sense of trust, satisfaction, and loyalty to the organization. Disaster recovery strategies develop an understanding of belongingness among the customers, who are a part of a business corporation’s primary assets. Above all, there is a need for business organizations to have excellent disaster recovery procedures to enhance company development and future prosperity.
References
Houston, J. B., Hawthorne, J., Perreault, M. F., Park, E. H., Goldstein Hode, M., Halliwell, M. R., Turner McGowen, S. E., Davis, R., Vaid, S., McElderry, J. A., & Griffith, S. A. (2015). Social media and disasters: A functional framework for social media use in disaster planning, response, and research. Disasters, 39(1).
Mendonca, J., Andrade, E., Endo, P. T., & Lima, R. (2019). Disaster recovery solutions for IT systems: A Systematic mapping study. Journal of Systems and Software, 149, 511–530.
Song, Y., Li, C., Olshansky, R., Zhang, Y., & Xiao, Y. (2017). Are we planning for sustainable disaster recovery? Evaluating recovery plans after the Wenchuan earthquake. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 60(12), 2192–2216.
Wallace, M., & Webber, L. (2017). The disaster recovery handbook: A step-by-step plan to ensure business continuity and protect vital operations, facilities, and assets. HarperCollins.
Zhou, L., Wu, X., Xu, Z., & Fujita, H. (2018). Emergency decision making for natural disasters: An overview. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 27, 567–576.