Ann Machado has spent a lot of time preparing for disasters. As CEO and founder of Creative Staffing, an employment agency based in hurricane-prone Miami, she has to. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, she’s factoring in a new set of risks. Like chemical warfare. “Do you stay in the building and have a lockdown?” she wonders. “We don’t keep canned food here. Should we keep canned food?”
Like Machado, business owners all over the country are taking a new look at disaster-recovery and business-continuity plans. Here are some low-cost tips and solutions to help you prepare for emergencies.
Bill Hicks, chief information officer of Miami-based customer-relationship-management provider Precision Response Corp., is a fan of dual-path telecommunications. Put simply, it’s two bundles of cable, each installed in separate locations in a building rather than together. With dual path, he says, it’s less likely that the road crew working on the street in front of your building will take out your entire telephone system at once. “If you’re in a major office park, it should be free,” Hicks says. “Most carriers are offering this as part of their regular service.”
Even if your phones are fine in a disaster, those of your key customers or suppliers might not be. So get the home phone numbers of essential customers and suppliers, Rothstein advises.
What if I need to evacuate the office?
First of all, have an evacuation plan and practice it. Fire departments don’t always require fire drills in low-rise buildings, says Carrido, but it’s possible to insert a clause in your lease to ensure that your building stages regular fire drills.
It’s also a good idea to figure out in advance who has the authority to close the office. At Creative Staffing, it’s two of the company’s three top officers. But if only one officer is available, that executive has the authority to make the decision. “We’ve created concentric circles around the office so people who live farther away go home first,” Machado adds.
What if I can’t get back into my office?
Hicks suggests that small companies strike an agreement with another company — a business partner, a supplier, even a customer — to maintain reciprocal hot sites, such as a backup office with servers and workstations. That way, each company would keep a server at the other’s offices to cover essential functions, such as payroll or accounting, and could count on temporarily using the other’s work space if need be.
What do I do about my computers?
Store your backup tapes in a convenient place other than your office — perhaps your own house. Rothstein says that he backs up data for his consulting practice at least daily and at a nearby relative’s home keeps a tape made weekly. He also sends a monthly backup to his parents’ house in Florida.
The same goes for backup servers: Don’t keep them right next to your primary server, says Rothstein.
The Internet offers another kind of backup solution. “All our applications are Web-based, and that’s going to be really critical for any kind of disaster-recovery plan,” says Hicks. “[Employees] can go to any PC, anywhere, to access that application.”
A solid, tested disaster-recovery plan is just good business sense, Machado adds. “After Hurricane Andrew, FEMA came into town right away, and the contractors came in. We had a big ad in the yellow pages, and we were able to answer our phones, so we picked up a ton of business,” she says. “There’s a lot of business that comes after a disaster, but you’ve got to be able to function.”
Emily Barker is a senior staff writer at Inc.
