Why Does Your Hotel Need Business Continuity Planning?

As important as the guest experience is to the success of your hotel, it shouldn’t be your only concern. There are a number of behind-the-scenes priorities that you have to manage – case in point: what if a major event affects your ability to care for your guests?

Unexpected emergencies present serious risks to businesses of any size. Without thorough and effective business continuity planning, a severe storm or power outage could put your hotel at risk of financial losses, reputation damage or worse. Business continuity planning is a perfect way to prepare for emergency situations, but without the right expertise, how can you be sure that you aren’t still at risk?

Preparing for major business interruptions – both natural and human-based – is critical to make sure you can stay up and running, regardless of whether the outage is at the office, in your town or around the world. Business continuity planning is one of the most important requirements of management at a hotel.

What Is Business Continuity Planning And Why Do You Need It?

At its core, business continuity planning is about data backup and data recovery services.

While almost anyone using a computer for work would understand the nature of why backing up your data is important (don’t forget that hard copies are often still filed in triplicate as a contingency), it’s likely you don’t know of each and every application that an effective data backup can have.

• Data retention contingencies: At the rate that technology evolves (and how quickly your standard operations and concerned policies are required to keep up with it), it’s no surprise that some businesses find it difficult to keep up with.

  When policy development falls behind the pace of adopted technologies, it can often lead to gaps, which can affect data retention.

• Cybercrime: Data loss is often the result of poor digital security; without the right defenses, cybercriminals can easily infect an IT system with ransomware or other types of malware and compromise company data.

  If you have you have a data backup solution, then it doesn’t matter if your data has been encrypted in a ransomware attack. You can just replace it with your backup, simple as that.

  That’s why you should make a considerable investment in a comprehensive backup data recovery solution so that you can restore your data at a moment’s notice when necessary.

• Human error: Much of data protection is dependent on the user, and as such it’s vital that you properly educate your employees in safe conduct. The more your workforce knows about the security measures you have in place, the more confidently they can use the technology is a secure manner.

  Human error can be detrimental to data integrity. Without a viable backup, all it takes is one accidental click to delete a file, or one spilled coffee to fry a local hard drive.

Why Should You Invest In Business Continuity Planning?

1. Protecting Your Business Assets: Your information technology will be protected by your IT support in Portsmouth, and your staff will be ready and productive in the event of a disaster. Employees will be informed and rehearsed, and they’ll know what actions to take. This could save your business a lot of downtime and money.

   Furthermore, in keeping you running, this plan will protect the image, brand, and reputation of your company. If you’re able to continue functioning despite a disaster, your customers will see you as dependable, and your reputation will be enhanced as a result.

2. Improve Your Business Culture: Your guests will feel confident doing business with you; you’ll be able to keep your commitments and ensure the continuing quality of the services and/or products you deliver.

   Your staff will gain an awareness of business operations that they didn’t have before. Business continuity planning can often provide staff with useful insights into improving the way they handle tasks, even in areas that hadn’t been previously considered.

3. Prevention Of Downtime & Other Consequences: If a disaster does occur, the cost of disruptions will be significantly reduced with a business continuity solution in place. There will be no disruptions to your supply chain. Your competitive position will be maintained or even improved because you’ll be able to meet your contractual requirements, where others who aren’t protected won’t.

Business Continuity Planning Is Built On Data Backup

The best way to enhance your data backup capabilities is to work with a capable IT company like Hampton Roads Communication Technologies. We can deliver the following:

• Comprehensive Backups: The backup solution you use should provide both local onsite backup for quick recovery in instances of data loss, as well as offsite cloud-based backup for when your business is hit with a critical disaster.
• Regularly Testing: You can’t just assume assume that your backups will just work when needed. We will regularly test your backups to verify their effectivity in the event that something goes wrong with your onsite data.
• Convenient Restoration: Don’t settle for clumsy, all-or-nothing backups. You should be able to choose a point in time to restore in the event that the data has been deleted, corrupted, or there has been a malicious intrusion.

We will help you map out a Business Continuity Plan and devise strategies to protect your business continuity. Your plan will take the following into account:

• Protect your IT System from significant disruptions.
• Get your business back up and running in only a few hours in the event of a disaster.
• Test your backups and recovery regularly as part of routine site maintenance.
• Perform backups hourly to a remote location without human intervention–with logging and alerting that notifies about not just failures but on the absence of success (a fundamental distinction).
• Recover files and complete systems for time periods going back days, weeks and months.