The Importance of a Disaster Recovery Plan for Organizations

Steve Waligora, Vp– Asset Protection, Risk and Audit, Channel Control Merchants, Llc

Steve Waligora, Vp– Asset Protection, Risk and Audit, Channel Control Merchants, Llc

Disaster planning, emergency preparedness, and business continuity plans aim to restore normal operations after a disruption.

Either a single computer or the entire network caused the interruption. A terrorist attack or power outage could also cause it. In case of trouble, have backup plans. The organization has a disaster recovery plan to ensure its survival and continued service.

A disaster recovery plan is a documentation for keeping an organization running in a disaster. Before potential disruptions, a plan must be formulated. Business continuity involves disaster recovery. Maintaining business operations requires preventing revenue loss. Developing a recovery plan ensures continued funding, services, and clientele.

Emergency planning begins after a business interruption. Disaster recovery procedures restore some functions to maintain service. Business continuity requires planning for restoration or returning your organization to its pre-interruption state.

Objective risk measures and subjective risk definitions can lead to inconsistent risk conclusions. The public tends to rate nuclear power as high-risk, but experts rate everyday activities higher (such as driving a car or climbing a ladder).

Public perceptions of risks are influenced by dread (the perception that an event will have significant and dreadful effects) and familiarity with the risk (i.e., the perception that the consequences of an event are not known or understood – e.g., genetic modification of foods). Feelings also influence risk assessment. How people feel after learning risk information determines their response.

A disaster recovery plan is documentation for keeping an organization running in a disaster

The impact of risk perceptions on people's preparedness is limited to certain environmental disasters and is most significant for immediate, concrete, and easy-to-achieve preparedness behaviors. This suggests that people's willingness to prepare for and deal with risks isn't directly related to their risk perceptions.

Effective communication about man-made and natural disasters must consider how people subjectively, emotionally, and sometimes irrationally perceive and misunderstand risks. Effective communication requires this. Providing impartial information isn't always possible or enough. The vividness of a potential event influences public perceptions of risk more than its objective probability.

Why does a certain event or option feel bad? According to psychological studies, one of the most important factors is how clearly we can imagine an event's consequences. Is driving or flying cross-country riskier? Accident rates, death rates, and other factors suggest that driving to the airport is riskier than flying. Most people will say "flying" because it's easy to imagine the worst-case scenario.

How much control a person feels they have over a situation is another important factor in determining if an event is dangerous. Driving can seem safer than flying because you have more control when driving. Even though an airplane's "driver" is likely an experienced professional supported by technical aids (such as air traffic control systems), it may feel riskier to take the wheel yourself than to let someone else "drive."

Familiarity raises risk. Many people live each day with statistically significant risks (earthquakes in San Francisco or tornadoes in Oklahoma), and each day without a disaster seems to lessen people's concerns. Tourists often worry about tornadoes and earthquakes. Locals downplay or ignore this possibility, in any case. People become accustomed to catastrophic events, which can be beneficial or detrimental when the event occurs. Long-time residents of a high-risk natural disaster area may not panic when a disaster strikes. Locals may not prepare for a disaster due to familiarity and discounting.