I know most people don’t get excited about discussing disaster recovery. Check that. There is only one type of person that does get “excited” about disaster recovery: the one that needs it. Most don’t even want to think about it. But, that all changes if your cashflow is driven from direct marketing or invoicing and the process is stopped by a system that has failed. It is then that disaster recovery becomes your entire world and also then that disaster recovery determines the success or failure of your business. Sound dramatic? Maybe, but imagine for a moment that your business has no cashflow for a month.

“How can this happen and what is my risk,” you might ask. So, imagine you own a business, like many of our clients, which drives a large amount of your revenue from Direct Mail or mailed invoices and you depend on a third-party for this service. Then one day you find out that your vendor was flooded, had a fire or ice storm and has declared an emergency—or worse, that they closed their doors and did not even have, at a minimum, the process in place that includes calling to let you know. You have to find out by calling them that they are out of business due to any number of causes, and they have no way to recover your work.

At this point, the custom code, business rules, and other customer-specific knowledge they have developed for you over the years have been lost with no chance of recovery. Now, you are faced with several difficult tasks: trying to understand the processes your previous vendor had in place, finding a new vendor quickly and getting your materials produced and mailed. All of this must be done before you can collect any more cash or bring in more clients. I don’t know what could be worse or make you feel sicker than the thought of losing your cashflow because of a situation such as this.

With this example in mind, I hope you will realize that disaster recovery is very important, especially before a disaster actually occurs. Ensuring your vendor has a plan in place can make all the difference in keeping your cashflow positive if a disaster should occur. So, ask for your vendor’s plan and talk it through with them. Ask questions, and most importantly, ask yourself how sensitive you are to a disaster.

Please remember, just because everything has been fine so far doesn’t mean it will stay that way. The reality is the survival of your business could depend on what you do before disaster hits.