Current Press coverage is painting a bleak picture for the UK’s (and world) economy – factories closing, output minimised, low stock levels plus numerous Government adverts advising on how best to wash your hands.
Planning for a ‘disaster’ needn’t be so bleak. Mintivo has some simple steps for you to consider now, so, if the worst does happen, you can continue your business operations from anywhere.
The areas you need to consider now are:
• Do you have enough laptops for staff to work from home/remotely?
– Staff who don’t normally have to work remotely may have a desktop PC, but it is probable that much of their work could be carried out remotely via a laptop
– Those who already use laptops should be easily able to transfer to working from home
– Using personal devices presents multiple security issues
• Are your laptops configured securely when working using a home or guest wi-fi?
• Are your laptops encrypted?
• Have you considered implementing your own Virtual Private Network (VPN) to ensure secure and encrypted connections?
• Have you provided training so that your staff know how to communicate and update their workloads via Microsoft Teams, Planner and other collaborative applications?
• Do your staff retain passwords via a secure portal that they can access from anywhere? (The post-it note in their office drawer will be no good to them if they have to self-isolate)
A good Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan is regularly tested to ensure it continues to meet your requirements. Mintivo regularly close the office with our Support Engineers working from home to ensure that our cloud-based solutions continue to deliver the services that we pride ourselves on. When was the last time you tested your plans, and as importantly, what was the result of the last full test? Can you still deliver your client proposition?
Ensure you have secure, automatic offsite backups to ensure your business data is retained. Check that you have cloud-based Office applications to assist with increasing productivity, particularly when staff are off-site. Protect your data from external threats with built-in privacy and compliance tools.
With the correct hardware and software, ‘disasters’ don’t have to spell disaster. Apart from sitting in a different chair and maybe the odd sniffle, basically, it’s business as usual. Therefore, don’t panic, don’t lose sleep, don’t lose data but do contact us for help and advice.
