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BUSINESS CONTINUITY+

Business Continuity+ is a professional service where we provide a combination of 30 years I.T. knowledge, prevention in disaster recovery, business continuity, and cybersecurity, coupled with vast capabilities for remote access of your business information systems and data.
We spend a day, going through your business interruption processes, I.T. systems, and run through some scenarios you have encountered over the years, then some modeling of other scenarios we know that can impact your business.
We then guide you through how using the correct I.T. systems, infrastructure, and software can give your business not only the competitive edge but also the ability to be prepared for any sort of business interruption.
Once we complete our analysis of your business, its interruption processes, and work out your best-case scenario, we then create a tailored strategic business continuity+ plan. This puts 99% of interruption scenarios into a bound and digital document, for you to have on standby to execute when required.
vCloud Group, with its invested years in business continuity and cloud computing, have the knowledge and guidance that meets 99% of interruptions. We are here to ensure the continuity of your business, throughout any kind of business interruption, is smooth and functional.

What's included in your strategic plan

FIXED PRICE

When you contact us to let us know you’re interested in a Business Continuity+ Strategic Plan for your business, we work out a series of a question to ask you. To work out exactly what it is you need and so you know all upfront costs … no hidden charges or surprises.

We then work directly with you to build and customise your business continuity+ strategic plan for your business to follow during any sort of business interruption.

FACE TO FACE
CONSULTATION

As much as face to face contact today may be a thing of the past, we still prefer it. We can do your consultation in your office, via teleconference, or remote link up or even a web conference through our phone system.
We can also provide plenty of questions and different scenarios to discuss to ensure we cover all different aspects of your business, so we can ensure we have your business covered.

WE TEST EVERY
SCENARIOS

We get into every interruption you have had, a deleted file, a possible server crash, any malware or cybersecurity attacks or threats you may have encountered. We then test those scenarios to see if you achieved the outcome that was to the best possible result.
We then run you through our modelling simulation, for some you may not have encountered yet and test, then retest to make sure when you need to execute this plan you know you’re covered.

RENEWABLE
SCENARIOS

As much as we all have a history of different business interruption scenarios and situations we have all gone through … there are always new ones that will always pop up. Perfect example COVID-19 pandemic, last time was 100 years ago.

When a new scenario that pops up, we can add or modify certain aspects of your business continuity+ strategic plan to ensure its always up to date.

WHY DO YOU NEED A BUSINESS CONTINUITY+ STRATEGIC PLAN

A business continuity+ strategic plan will help your business continue to operate during any sort of business interruption. It will also provide the foundation for your staff, and enable them to follow a guided and documented process to know what they need to do to keep doing their functions going forward.
A perfect example of this is – let’s say you are going through a building, that has elevators, lifts, or stairs. The one thing in common is they all have an evacuation plan near every lift or noticeable as you walk in. This plan is put in place to ensure these scenarios are met:

  • A tested scenario of what could happen in a building
  • A central place to evacuate to
  • A path you must take as your evacuation point

It’s this very reason you need a business continuity+ strategic plan. As the business owner, you want your staff to execute your plan according to how you want to run. Whether you are in the office or overseas on holidays.

A business continuity+ strategic plan also means that when the time comes for you to execute any sort of business interruption. You have the peace of mind you don’t have to think about what to do, who need to coordinate certain tasks if purchasing any equipment is required. We have done all the thinking for you.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR BUSINESSES RECOVERY POINT OBJECTIVE (RPO)

With any sort of business interruption, there is a point of recovery you need to strive too. Usually, this needs to be in the way of minutes depending on the type of interruption. This doesn’t matter if its a malware attack, a deleted file or server crash. Your Recovery Point Objective or also known as RPO is very important especially to the owner of the business.

It’s what to do, how to execute, and how to know you are functional again, that this strategic plan will bring your RPO to the smallest amount of time possible. The way we overcome this is to document every scenario we know and have learned from over the last 30 years, and some you have encountered. We then test those scenarios and work through a common framework to help execute this through our business continuity+ strategic plan.

We have found, the only way to get through any sort of business interruption is to have a properly documented process to follow.

Like this, you don’t have too many chiefs putting in their two bobs where it’s not required.

To understand more about business continuity and RPO, visit this site:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_recovery#Recovery_Point_Objective/

TEST, TEST AND TEST AGAIN

Remember the days of the good old tape or USB drive for backing up data. Then to receive an email saying that the backup was successful. Then one day, years later, you need to use your backup to find out it was corrupted including every backup for the last month.This is why testing is essential in today’s complex environments. Let’s face it, no point going to all the trouble of getting a business continuity+ strategic plan done and not test it. The biggest mistake you can make with any type of strategic plan is to get complacent and forget to test your different scenarios.

As part of our standard business continuity packages, we do a test randomly on different servers in our virtual network to ensure the integrity of our systems and backup solution. This varies from restoring files, complete virtual server restoration, and replication from site to site for failover purposes.
We encourage all clients to test their business continuity+ strategies regularly. It’s a best practice to exercise to test each different scenario every month, as this can also help determine and issues with backups.

Testing your business continuity+ strategic plan will:

  • Ensure each scenario solution is flawless
  • That the process in the documentation is correctly documented
  • That the right staff execute their part of the strategic plan
  • Your recovery point objective (RPO) is always met
  • Fill in the test document with the execution and update

But following the steps outlined in the strategic plan document, you will make sure the document is always 100% accurate.

UTILISING THE BEST SUITED PLATFORMS

Trying to choose the correct platform for your business is difficult, especially if you are rapidly expanding or restructuring. As a business owner, you are sometimes guided by staff or sales consultants trying to make a sale. We find this is the worst time to be making these kinds of decisions that could impact the productivity or bottom line running cost of your business. When we recommend a platform, we look into every aspect of your business to see it best suits your requirements. Firstly, we need to have either used it or seen it in action at another company or client, so we know how it works and if it has any limitations. Secondly, the cost is always a factor, more expensive doesn’t always mean its better, and thirdly, the support they provide for their software or hardware needs to match how our business continuity+ strategic plan is put in place.

We test and only work with the best platform that has three (3) things in common:

  • They are best suited to working varies business scenarios,
  • Their software development model is current and industry standard, and
  • These solutions integrate and complement other solutions we work with.

As much as our business model is geared towards cloud computing, cloud computing isn’t always the best-case scenario. Some cloud computing solutions might be what is required for smaller businesses. Larger business, because the cost of hardware and the time for RPO is so small to limit downtime, virtualization, and cloud computing is sometimes the only option.
We work and support all type of platforms, whether you have an on-premise, cloud or hybrid cloud computing network, or looking to transition to the cloud, you know we can tailor your business continuity+ strategic plan to suit your scenario.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT FOR YOUR STAFF TONEED TOKNOW HOW TO EXECUTE THIS PLAN

Most of us have had a business interruption in the time we have run businesses. Business interruptions could vary from being an internet outage, a deleted file, server failure, cybersecurity attack, or even power loss in your office.
You can always notice, that your staff are walking around not able to do their work until the interruption is restored or recovered to some point of your RPO. It’s very important to bring your staff into the design of this document, and ensure that when a business interruption occurs, you are not overly stressed and/or overwhelmed on how to get staff back to doing their day to day tasks.
We will talk not only with upper and middle management but also to the people who do the day to day task for management. If anything the people who perform this work are most critical to keep the business operating efficiently. What we will work out is:

  • The different systems they use and how they use them daily,
  • If systems are down, what work cannot be performed and the impact of customers and business and
  • When working from different locations, what is required to keep staff productivity.

Part of this business continuity+ strategic plan is training your staff on how to follow, execute, and run these test scenarios. We work closely with everyone to make sure the documented process is followed. The first and second test scenarios you run, we will be there to ensure that it all goes smoothly and to answer any question anyone might have. After that we are available remotely or via telephone and web conference.

TREAT BUSINESS CONTINUITY+ STRATEGIC PLANLIKE FIRE DRILL AND/OR EVACUATION PLAN

In a building, there is always an emergency evacuation or fire drill that needs to be regularly tested. Everyone is notified and instructed on what to do, where to go, and who to coordinate with, to ensure the safety of everyone in the building.
Most I.T. companies, don’t have a documented process when it comes to the recovery/restoration of your I.T. business systems. Addressing the issue as it comes, or trying to resolve them on an ad-hoc basis is not the answer.
We understand that restoring I.T. business systems, is critical for most companies. You can rely on vCloud Group to implement the best strategic planning solution. No matter the size of your business, our business continuity+ strategic plans are geared towards the continuity of your business. With the right strategy, planning, and execution, surely you will gain client loyalty and confidence when they see you running business as usual. After adversity or situation-changing events such as the COVID-19.
With vCloud Group, you have expert advice on strategic planning when creating our Business Continuity+ program.

This ensures the safety and integrity of your company data first and foremost.
Testing a plan is the only way to know how effective the documented policies are. Similar to fire drills and evacuation plans, these scenarios are regularly tested in our vCloud lab. From our controlled tests, we are able to derive and formulate a solution based on multiple scenarios and then document them. As we always believe in the saying, “Practice makes Progress and Progress makes Permanent”
If you would like some more information about our business continuity+ strategic planning, please make an appointment by clicking here so we can discuss the best way to ensure the continuity of your business.

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