Business Interrupted: The Unexpected Disaster Your IT Provider Should Be Planning For
In the tri-state area, we’ve seen it all — Ice Storms that take out power for days, flash floods that wipe out towns, summer thunderstorms that knock out internet across whole neighborhoods, and even cyberattacks timed to hit right before holiday weekends.
If you run a small or midsize business here, you know interruptions aren’t an “if,” they’re a “when.” But here’s the problem: most companies think they’re ready because they “have backups.”
Backups alone aren’t enough to keep you running.
If your systems are inaccessible, your phones are down, or your team can’t work remotely, even the best backups won’t prevent the downtime, lost revenue, and damaged client trust that follow.
That’s where true business continuity comes in.
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Backups vs. Business Continuity — The Critical Difference
It’s easy to confuse these two terms, but here’s the reality:
• Backups help you recover your data.
• Continuity ensures your business keeps running no matter what.
With just backups, you can restore a file.
With a continuity plan, you can restore operations.
A solid continuity strategy answers questions like:
• How quickly can we get critical systems back online?
• Where will our team work if the office is unusable?
• What’s our plan if the building has no power for a week?
• Who activates the recovery process?
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The Core Elements of a Reliable Continuity Plan
A dependable IT provider won’t just “give you a backup” — they’ll create a complete plan with:
• Encrypted, off-site, and immutable backups safe from ransomware
• Tested recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) so you know exactly how fast you can be operational
• Cloud-based systems and remote work preparedness so your team can work anywhere
• Redundant systems and automatic failover to keep services live
• Regular disaster simulation drills to test readiness before the real thing hits
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Real-World Local Examples
In the past few years alone, we’ve seen tri-state businesses disrupted by:
• Tornados that destroyed whole business buildings
• Ice storms that left offices without power or internet for multiple days
• Local ransomware attacks that encrypted not only data but the company’s only backup copy
The businesses that bounced back quickly? They had more than backups — they had a tested, end-to-end continuity plan.
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The Questions You Should Be Asking Your IT Provider
If disaster struck tomorrow, could you:
• Keep client communication open?
• Process sales, payments, and orders?
• Give your employees a secure way to work from anywhere?
• Meet regulatory and insurance requirements?
If your IT partner can’t confidently walk you through the answers — with proof — you’re relying on luck, not a plan.
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Bottom Line: Disasters Are Inevitable. Downtime Doesn’t Have to Be.
Here in the tri-state area, we can’t stop the storms, the grid outages, or the cybercriminals. But we can prepare your business to keep going without missing a beat.
A good IT provider gets you back online after a disaster.
A great IT partner makes sure your business never truly stops.
Let’s build your continuity plan before you need it.
📞 Call Honorbound IT today at 877-686-6642 to schedule your business continuity assessment.
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