Telecoms Recovery and Business Continuity Advice

Continue doing Business even when your Phones are down

It's extensively understood throughout the business community that downtime in any area or system can be costly both financially but also in terms of staff and client moral. This especially true when it comes to data where most businesses will have some form of off-site backup to ensure continuity of information in the event of computer systems failure.

Just as important, but more often overlooked, is providing some form of backup to Business Telecommunications. Complacency often sets in when systems are working correctly and no problems occur, but it's important that business administrators review the company telecoms and consider the implications of any downtime.

Any phone system outage, whether short or extended, will result in considerable financial losses and inconvenience and possibly at a time when your business can least afford disruption.

Risk Analysis and DR Planning Without business phone systems immediately recoverable, or covered by a telecom recovery plan, your company will be 'off air' with a resultant loss of both immediate business and long term reputation. The impact to business needs to be evaluated with a suitable risk analysis, either internally or with the assistance of a specialized Disaster Recovery (DR) provider. A Telecom Recovery Plan may well be one area of a more comprehensive Business Continuity Plan covering data, staffing and every other company system or it can be a stand alone exercise added independently. Risks to communications from various sources, internal and external, natural or man made, need to be considered and even quantified by use of a numerical risk scaling system.

Training of staff in the correct procedures during an outage is an important aspect of any DR plan, particularly with communications backup. Staff will need to cope with temporary changes to the phone network while maintaining high levels of customer service.

Once in place, a telecom recovery plan needs regular maintenance, testing and auditing to ensure continued effectiveness and to adjust with changes in business structure and needs.

Customer Satisfaction and SLAs

Service Level Agreements (SLA) between company and client have to be complied with to avoid penalty and to maintain good customer relations. Without backup for mission critical systems, including telecommunications, business services risk falling below agreed service levels, resulting in penalty plus clients taking their business elsewhere.

Telecom Recovery provides comprehensive advice on DR for telecommunications plus resources and recommendations for business seeking phone system backup. Business communications outages are costly both financially and to reputation and an effective backup to communications should be in place to maintain contact between staff and customers during emergencies.