A Managed Service Provider Can Improve Your Business Continuity Solutions: Here’s How

Expect the unexpected, right? No matter how hard you try, things don’t always go as planned. There are lots of pitfalls when it comes to running a business, but thankfully, some detailed planning in the form of business continuity solutions can help you bounce back quickly when the unexpected happens.

And if the idea of creating your own business continuity plan is overwhelming—especially if you don’t consider yourself to be an IT whiz—then working with a managed service provider (MSP) might be just the thing for you.

Let’s cover why you need a business continuity plan and how an MSP can help.

What Threats Have Their Eyes on Your Business Continuity?

One of the biggest threats to your business continuity plan is simply not having one in place. As a business owner who’s always going 100 mph, it’s easy to ignore something you don’t consider critical to your daily operations, but planning for disasters and other unexpected events is crucial.

Let’s put it in context: Nobody was truly prepared for the pandemic shutdowns, but the companies that pivoted were the ones that survived. Restaurants offered delivery and pop-up shops, retail stores upped their digital marketing and offered curbside options, and manufacturing companies began to produce medical supplies.

Business continuity solutions don’t ensure that you can overcome any challenge that comes your way, but they allow you to frontload the decision-making so that when a challenge does come, you know what steps to take.

In short, business continuity means that you can maintain some form of daily operations even when disaster strikes. Threats to your continuity could look like:

• Natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, or floods
• Cyberattacks, like ransomware or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks
• Technical failures through a power outage or downed servers
• Employee absences or error, like accidents, sickness, or bad cyber hygiene

How Can an MSP Help Improve Your Business Continuity Solutions?

When you have so much going on in the here and now, planning for a “what if” scenario might feel like that home DIY project you’ve been meaning to get done for the last few…years. It might be time to get extra help so you can check something off the to-do list and feel prepared for those inevitable challenges.

An MSP is a great place to start. Not only will they help you create a business continuity plan, but they can also help you update your existing plan and provide around-the-clock support when something does go wrong.

Start at the end

When you hear “business continuity solutions,” reliable backups should be the first thing that comes to mind. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure because even though you’ve got a plan in place, it doesn’t mean you want to use it. An MSP will keep tabs on the health of your backups and identify vulnerabilities that could prevent or slow getting you back online and operational.

Someone is always on the clock

Every once in a while, everything goes wrong at the worst time possible. In-house IT employees go on vacation, get sick, or won’t be able to handle an issue in the middle of the night. An MSP provides a team of skilled technicians who are ready to help you at any time, day or night.

Make your employees another line of defense

Your employees are your greatest asset, but they can also be the weakest link. Many cyberattacks occur because employees make simple mistakes.

With frequent, comprehensive security awareness training, you and your employees will become experts at spotting cybersecurity red flags. From preventing phishing emails to better password protection, your employees can become your strongest line of defense. 

Work with an MSP that provides frequent security awareness training with extensive practical education on the latest security threats. They’ll train your employees on a host of topics with a variety of tools catered to different learning styles.

By offloading training to a trusted IT provider, you won’t have to wonder if your employees are operating on outdated cybersecurity knowledge, or try to beat the clock every four to six months when it’s time to train again.   

And by making your employees squeaky clean when it comes to cyber hygiene, you can mitigate a lot of risks.

Compliance and regulations

Even in crisis mode, you still have to follow the rules. An MSP can help you keep up with the latest compliance and regulatory guidelines, which might include things like HIPAA for healthcare companies, PCI DSS for eCommerce companies, or FERPA for schools.

Digital transformation

Necessity is the mother of all invention, which means a challenge for your business could turn into a blessing in disguise! With a partner that lives for new technologies, you’ll be able to take advantage of emerging trends that improve your business continuity solutions.

Bounce Back with Common Angle IT Heroes

Your business is your livelihood, something into which you’ve poured so much time and passion. At Common Angle, we want to be your digital transformation and IT hero—providing the support and assistance you need when facing the unexpected. Together, we can implement business continuity solutions that will help you recover from a challenge with confidence.

Give us a call or schedule a network assessment to see if we’d be a good fit as your MSP!