It's nice to think that a network systems failure, an issue with your cabling services or a power outage could never take place at your organization, but operating under the assumption that it will never happen could be a costly mistake. Businesses that prepare for potential dangers often find themselves in the best position when such problems inevitably occur, and having a backup plan in place can save your organization a lot of money down the road.
So, the question is, how do you manage this? The key is to find who or what will be most impacted by an outage or other kind of disaster and build in a plan to mitigate the negative effects on that entity. In many cases, that's your end users.
An article in the online publication Tech Page One addresses the potential issue of a cloud outage and offers several tips to survive such an incident. If your cloud based services go down, a number of areas of your business can be affected, but Dennis Smith, the article's author, suggests the user might be the most important.
"The end user will probably feel the full effect of a cloud computing outage, so factor user experience into any contingency and/or backup plan," Smith writes. "Aim for minimal disruption from a user's point of view during the planning and design phases. A properly formulated strategy will allow the user access to alternative resources in a specified time, usually according to a service-level agreement."
Ultimately, your contingency plan is in place to ensure that any problems at your organization have a minimal impact on productivity, and you rely on your end users to produce. Working with a business systems provider can help ensure you have a proper strategy in place and that no one, particularly your end users, are seriously impacted by an unforeseen event.