Companies around the world are still feeling the effects of a global shortage of computer chips and other essential IT hardware components in the wake of the pandemic.
While supply chain disruption is slowly easing as restrictions are lifted around the world, firms could still face delays of weeks or months to receive replacement components if they don’t have redundancies in place. And as we have seen with the Ukraine crisis, all it takes is another major global event for the situation to quickly worsen again.
As businesses start winding down for the holiday season, we have been busy with disaster recovery testing for our clients. It’s an essential step towards staying resilient in the face of IT hardware shortages.
Why Every Business Needs a Continuity Plan
It is vital any business understand its IT risks, exposures and tolerances. That means knowing which components are business-critical as well as your Restore Point Objective (RPO) – how much data you are willing to lose in the event of a system outage – and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – how long you can tolerate between the moment a disaster is announced and the return to normal operations.
Firms should run simulations to see how operating without certain hardware would affect them in the real world and to test their disaster response and business continuity plans (BCPs).
Investing in Backups is Key
In our experience, infrastructure equipment has been the hardest to get hold of.
We are advising our clients to invest in spare networking equipment and servers to avoid potentially damaging business interruptions. For many organisations, the cost of doing this will be relatively minor compared to the potential financial impact of lost revenues or operational disruptions. We have heard of companies having to use desktop hardware because it took them months to get a replacement server!
With more volatility likely in 2023, operational resilience is key and IT system downtime is a threat no company can afford to overlook.
With over 25 years’ experience in business continuity planning, Intersys can help organisations survive and thrive in the face of IT hardware shortages.