Global commerce relies on the constant flow of data. With data and the insights associated with it becoming an increasingly important competitive differentiator, there is a need for businesses to prepare adequately for disruptive events like cyber-attacks, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses were forced to adapt quickly to the extreme and sudden onset of disruption. Some were poised to respond better than others based on where they were on their digital journey. But, in general, there has been a huge, collective effort to deliver new experiences and transform the way businesses consume and deploy software, infrastructure and applications at speed. In the 2020 Digital Transformation Index 95% of Indian businesses responded that they were able to successfully accelerate at least some of their digital transformation programs this year. This momentum needs to be maintained because developing a digital business model that can scale in response to any disruption requires continuous, concerted effort.
If the world has learnt one thing from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that nothing is certain. Business continuity for long-term resilience is paramount. The ability to implement pre-established crisis management teams at all levels and in all major operating locations, as well as the proper investment of time and resource is often the difference between longevity and demise. Interestingly, one of the most important elements of crisis management is not necessarily crisis specific – it is about having the right IT infrastructure to put the processes, teams, culture and training in place. Without this, an organization can be left vulnerable and scrambling to try to respond to the effects of a catastrophic event in real time. So, the four critical components to help an organization achieve a highly resilient business are:
- Enabling recovery from destructive events.
- For natural disasters, the first step is to ensure a robust recovery strategy and infrastructure are in place should a disaster strike and business operations are impacted. Moreover, it’s good to be prepared for the unexpected and consider continuous availability, workload mobility and multi-cloud/hybrid cloud agility in addition to baseline backup and recovery strategies.
- Since cyber-attacks are becoming more sophisticated and devastating, a business must consider new data protection and cybersecurity use cases that represent the “last line of defense”. 53% of Indian respondents said strengthening cybersecurity defenses was one of the most accelerated areas of digital transformation programs this year. Therefore, it is always recommended to keep an isolated copy of the most critical data off the production network and isolated from production backup systems.
- Optimizing data protection infrastructure and operations. Preparing data protection operations for the multi-cloud enabled future requires breaking down silos and creating enterprise-wide policies that integrate key aspects of data protection and recovery. These new approaches should be centralized in a service catalog which automates critical functionality and is easily accessible and understood by users.
- Ensuring application availability amidst an outage. Businesses must assess the current state of their IT continuity program. 26% of Indian businesses responded that lack of alignment and collaboration across company is a main barrier to digital transformation of their company. Thus, to surpass this hurdle, often, an important first step is an interactive workshop with IT and business stakeholders. Having these two groups come to a consensus will better connect IT procedures with business needs, prioritizing availability for the most critical applications first. A key part of a strong availability strategy is simulating a variety of outage scenarios to help ensure all teams are ready to act and that the necessary technologies are available and accomplish the desired outcome.
- Equipping employees with tools for remote work. In addition to being prepared for outages, it is imperative to ensure your workforce has the right tools and resources to perform their work tasks remotely. As experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations had to pivot almost instantly to support and scale remote work infrastructures. 47% of Indian businesses said that rolling out broader working from home / remote working capabilities was one of the most accelerated areas of digital transformation programs this year. Hence, businesses must continue to embrace innovation, giving employees the tools to prioritize flexibility and develop new ways of working with high levels of engagement and productivity.
A crisis doesn’t need to feel like a crisis if an organization is equipped to handle them, which is possible by applying industry best practices to the infrastructure, applications and operating model of your business resilience programs.
