Every business wants to get the maximum possible return on its investments, and IT is no exception. With that in mind, it might sound counterintuitive that it’s sometimes necessary to replace hardware that isn’t broken. After all, what’s the point in buying new hardware when your current systems still seem to be working properly? Surely, that’s a terrible waste of money.

A disaster recovery plan is a documented strategy for responding to unplanned IT catastrophes like security breaches or natural disasters. Such occurrences can wreak havoc on your IT systems, causing downtime, data loss, or both.

While these instances seem rare, 2017 has already set a record for data security breaches.

Power outages, disasters and other disruptions happen. And thousands of businesses around the globe are affected by them every year, with lost profits ranging into the millions, if not billions. So how can your business protect itself and stay open when the unexpected strikes? Here are five common business continuity strategies that many companies rely on.

When and if disaster strikes, is your business going to continue to operate and cater to customers despite a possible long-term hardware failure or a network disruption? If you answer no or are not even sure what to do, you are part of a majority of business owners who have not considered disaster preparedness and the crucial role it plays in business survival.

Even a single second of downtime at your business can cause a ripple effect that sees operations become unhinged. While most Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) take into account longer power outages, short ones can be just as dangerous to your company.

You are protecting your small or medium-sized business with insurance – of course you are. But is that really enough? The recent increase in natural disasters has led savvy business owners to also take out business interruption insurance, which covers many additional scenarios in the event that you are unable to carry on operating.

Having a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is great, but only if you know when it needs to be invoked. If you don’t know when it should take effect, then you might as well not have one at all. While a lot of business owners might believe it is pretty obvious when a BCP needs to be invoked, the process is not always so cut and dry.

There is nothing worse for a company and its customers than being forced to close because of inclement weather. And with winter almost upon us once again, now is a good time to make sure your business continuity plan is prepared for anything and everything mother nature is looking to throw your way.