Business Continuity in Severe Weather
The clocks going back is a sign that the winter months are fast approaching. For many businesses, the winter season is a cause for concern due to the increasingly unpredictable nature of the British weather. It’s certainly time to consider whether you have robust plans in place for business continuity. Severe weather can negatively impact businesses in several ways. It can cause delays and disruptions to travel, which can result in extensive and prolonged employee absence. It can also cause power failure and problems with business telephone systems and telephone lines. These eventualities can cause significant disruption to your business and inconvenience to customers. Without adequate measures in place to minimise the negative impact of severe weather, your business could suffer both financial and reputational losses.
Thankfully, modern communications technologies provide ways to overcome disruption to business and ensure maximum business continuity during severe weather.
Even if your business was only affected by severe weather that prevented staff from being able to work for one day, it is likely that you would experience significant financial losses as well as the stress of having to cope with backlogs and customer complaints. However, by simply mobilising your workforce and providing them with the tools they need to work away from the office, you can ensure that your customers can still contact your business even when your main premises are not fully operational. Modern business telephone systems facilitate integration with business mobiles, allowing workers to take calls on the go and when they are away from the office. This means that your customers will still be able to contact your business on your usual office number, regardless of the location of your workers. And by utilising VoIP services and cloud-based communications, you can provide flexible and remote workers with full office functionality from home and on the go. Cloud-based services and applications can be accessed from multiple devices for ultimate working flexibility. When your workforce is equipped with the tools and applications they need to work effectively from any location, severe weather and the subsequent travel disruptions will no longer be a barrier to business continuity.
When severe weather strikes, it can not only cause travel disruptions but also poses risks to electrical equipment and services. Downtime as a result of power or equipment failure can cause significant and prolonged disruption to business. Disaster planning is a constant source of anxiety for many businesses and protecting your communications can prove costly. But there is another way. By opting for hosted services, you can outsource the hassle of disaster planning to a telecoms provider. With cloud communications, such as cloud phone systems and hosted desktops, you can benefit from greater reliability and security compared with most on-premises solutions. This is because providers invest in high-end equipment, fail-safe systems and the kind of disaster recovery networks that most businesses are unable to support. They tend to have multiple data centers, which are supported by expert engineers around the clock, in order to provide a reliable service and maximise uptime. This makes cloud communications a cost-effective way to maximise business protection and ensure business continuity in the event of adverse weather.
With many climate change experts predicting that extreme weather events are likely to become a more frequent occurrence in the UK, it’s worth taking the time to plan for business continuity. Cloud-based communications and mobile integration are smart, cost-effective ways of utilising technology to your advantage. With an effective and reliable communications infrastructure in place, you can plan for maximum uptime and business continuity in the event of severe weather this winter.
If you would like advice or information on equipment and services that can help you plan for severe weather conditions this winter, contact Midland Networks today on 0800 849 8585.