When something goes wrong with your technology, the first question is usually:
How quickly can we get back to work?
That’s when the difference between having technology in place and actually being prepared becomes very clear.
A business may have backups. It may have cybersecurity tools. It may have an IT company it can call when there’s a problem.
Those are all important.
But recovery also depends on whether anyone has thought through what happens next.
What needs to be restored first? How long could that take? Who makes decisions? Can employees work another way in the meantime? And does everyone involved know what they’re supposed to do?
Here are five common recovery mistakes that can turn a manageable technology problem into a much longer business interruption.
Mistake #1: Assuming Having Backups Means You’re Prepared
We talk about backups a lot because they’re important. But a backup isn’t a recovery plan.
If your server failed tomorrow, having the data backed up would certainly be good news. But there would still be questions to answer.
Which systems need to be restored first?
How long will the restoration take?
Can employees work while that’s happening?
Are there applications that need to be restored along with the data?
Who needs to be involved?
The answers will be different for every business.
That’s why recovery planning should start with understanding what your business actually needs to operate; not simply whether a backup exists.
What to do instead: Identify your critical systems and understand what recovery would realistically look like for each one. Know what needs to come back first and what your business can temporarily operate without.
Mistake #2: Never Testing the Recovery Process
There’s a big difference between seeing a successful backup notification and actually restoring information from that backup. You don’t want to discover that difference during an emergency.
Testing helps answer some important questions:
Can the information actually be restored?
How long does it take?
Does the restored system work the way you expect?
Is everything you thought was being protected actually there?
Testing can also uncover problems that are easy to miss during normal day-to-day operations.
Maybe a new application wasn’t included in the original plan. Maybe something changed. Maybe recovery takes significantly longer than everyone assumed.
Those are useful things to learn – as long as you learn them before you need the backup.
What to do instead: Test backups and recovery procedures regularly. Don’t just confirm that the backup ran. Verify that you can use it to recover what your business needs.
Mistake #3: Figuring Out Who’s in Charge During the Problem
When systems are unavailable, decisions sometimes need to happen quickly.
Should employees continue working?
Should a system be shut down?
Does your cyber insurance carrier need to be contacted?
Should customers be notified?
Who has the authority to make those decisions?
If nobody has discussed this beforehand, valuable time can be spent calling different people and trying to determine who should do what.
For a small business, the response team doesn’t need to be complicated. It might only involve an owner or manager, your IT provider and one or two other key people.
What matters is that everyone knows their role.
What to do instead: Decide ahead of time who contacts IT, who makes business decisions, who communicates with employees and who handles any necessary outside communication.
Mistake #4: Focusing on the Technology and Forgetting About the People
Getting systems running again is obviously an important part of recovery.
But while IT is working on the technology, your employees still need to know what they’re supposed to do.
Can they work?
Should they work remotely?
Is there another system or process they should use temporarily?
When should they expect another update?
Customers may have questions too, particularly if the disruption affects your ability to serve them.
A lack of communication can make an already frustrating situation feel much more chaotic than it needs to be.
What to do instead: Include communication in your recovery plan. Know how you’ll reach employees if your normal communication tools aren’t available, who will provide updates and when customers or vendors may need to hear from you.
Mistake #5: Creating a Plan and Never Looking at It Again
A recovery plan isn’t something you create once and file away.
Your business keeps changing.
You hire employees. People leave. Computers and servers are replaced. Applications move to the cloud. Vendors change.
Phone numbers change. New systems become important to daily operations.
Your recovery plan needs to change along with them.
A beautifully documented plan from five years ago isn’t very helpful if it references an employee who no longer works there and a server you replaced three years ago.
This is also why recovery planning works best as part of an ongoing IT strategy rather than as a one-time project.
What to do instead: Review your recovery plan regularly and anytime there’s a significant change to your people, technology or business operations.
Recovery Is About More Than Technology
There’s no piece of technology that can guarantee your business will never experience an interruption.
The better goal is to make sure that when something does happen, you already know what comes next.
That’s what preparedness looks like.
Your systems are documented.
Your backups are monitored and tested.
Your equipment is being maintained and replaced on a plan.
Your employees know who to call.
Your IT provider already understands your environment.
And you’ve had conversations about which parts of your business need to get back online first.
That preparation may not prevent the problem from happening, but it can make recovering from it much less disruptive.
From Reactive to Prepared
At Hurricane Technologies, we believe recovery planning should happen while everything is working.
It’s part of looking at IT proactively instead of waiting for something to break.
When we manage a client’s technology, we’re not just thinking about today’s support requests. We’re looking at backups, security, equipment, documentation and future needs so there is a plan behind the technology the business relies on.
Because when something does go wrong, the last thing you want to do is start figuring everything out from scratch.
Do you know what recovery would look like for your business?
You don’t need to have every possible scenario mapped out.
But you should know what’s most important, what’s protected and what happens first.
If you’re not sure, Hurricane Technologies can help you take a look at your current environment and start answering those questions before you need the answers.
