Written by: Daniel Haurey on 12/29/17

it service needs

When an IT emergency happens, it can put your business on hold for hours or even days. A recent study found that 54% of companies reported having experienced IT downtime from a single event that lasted more than eight hours. This can cause loss of revenue, waste of employee wages, and significant stress. Fortunately, with the right preparedness, you can respond to an outage, hack, or natural disaster and get your IT service needs back on track. The following are some IT emergency preparedness best practices for your business.

Back up your hard drives regularly.

This is the golden rule of IT. If you fail to back up your company hard drives, you could potentially lose valuable information in the event of an outage or crash. If possible, back up your information in more than one location to effectively safeguard your data.

Choose a quality firewall service.

Your security measures should be able to stand up to IT emergencies as well. Install a strong firewall and update the software often. This will keep your system safe even in your most vulnerable IT moments.

Check your insurance coverage.

Does your insurance company cover hardware loss? If your business is impacted by a natural disaster or other incidents, your insurance coverage should be able to replace your losses. And if your data is backed up as well, you will be able to recover even more.

Update your communication strategy.

If a major IT emergency does happen, you need an effective way to communicate with your employees. Whether you invest in a texting service or create email templates, these tools can help you inform your team of network infrastructure problems. And you can keep them updated as the situation updates.

Hire a managed IT support service.

By hiring a managed IT service, you can leave your IT service needs to a professional. This can be useful both in an emergency and during general operations. Your outsourced IT team can help with prevention while you carry on other business operations.

When you take the above steps, you can better handle any emergency that arises. And to address your specific needs, work closely with your managed IT service provider. This will help you create an IT solution that truly safeguards your data.