Winter is Right Around the Corner, Prepare Now for Business Continuity

We know it is hard to say goodbye to summer and welcome in the fall season because that just leads to winter. With holiday travel, stormy winter weather, and unpredictable flu and cold illnesses, these last few weeks leading into fall is the time to start identifying and implementing solutions which will help you maintain business continuity no matter what.

Weather

Year after year, late summer hurricanes and winter (and even spring) snowstorms wreak havoc on business continuity. What comes to mind is a major snowstorm that leaves employees unable to reach the office. Some storms can last for days until roads are safe to drive on again and if employees have no reliable way from working from home, they’re stuck idle and unproductive.

Even a small tropical storm can cause a blackout or high winds can down trees and leave roads impassable. If you don’t have a solid work from home plan to initiate during these events, your staff can’t work, business is not conducted and revenue opportunities are delayed or even lost.

It’s not just your employees’ productivity which can be impacted by inclement weather. If a severe storm damages your building, and the server containing all of your data and applications in it, your entire business operation can be halted if you don’t have a DR plan in place with the redundancy to keep data and applications accessible.

Holiday Travel

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” or so the infamous song by Andy Williams goes. You know, the time of year which is full of family-focused holidays. While some people live close to their extended family, it’s not at all uncommon today for many to travel long distances for the holidays. The option to work while traveling is becoming more popular and promotes a healthier work/life balance. It also ensures that you have access to productive staff during a critical time, end of year closings.

Another impact of holiday travel is a spike in lost or forgotten devices. Between navigating through busy airports, the stress of traveling during the holiday rush and the general excitement of family coming and going, it’s not uncommon for laptops, tablets or smartphones to be left behind. Sometimes the employee may be able to recover the device (i.e. it was forgotten at a family member’s house and can be shipped back) and other times they’re gone for good (i.e. left in an airport). Either way, this could take the employee offline for a few days while a new device is ordered and setup. Even worse, if the device contained protected sensitive data, it may constitute a compliance breach if the right security and control measures weren’t in place, creating an even bigger issue.

Delivering Business Continuity

Business Continuity means untethering an employee’s productivity from a single device in your business office. Hosted Virtual Desktop solutions like Desktops2Go® enables employees to access their corporate desktops, data and applications from any device, anywhere, allowing them to continue working through many of the scenarios covered above. Employees can log onto their desktops and work from home or while away on travel.

With fall well on its way in the door and the holidays looming, you should take steps now to ensure employee productivity isn’t disrupted this winter.