The unprecedented environment caused by the recent pandemic serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of disaster planning and maintaining business continuity during a crisis. As COVID-19 continues to impact every aspect of business, it is imperative for organizations to be forward-thinking and future-proof their operations.
Although the importance of digital transformation had grown in recent years, the pandemic caused organizations to rapidly embrace and adopt new and frequently changing technology. One example of this was the quick transition to remote work, as many employees were forced to work from home to limit the spread of the virus. While some organizations were set up for remote work, many networks were unprepared for the rapid shift. It’s important to remember digital transformation isn’t just crucial for ensuring your employees can complete their daily tasks – it is also a necessary tool to drive a seamless customer experience as customers seek deeper, more meaningful interactions with brands online.
The Role of Digital Transformation in Business Continuity
Not only is digital transformation important for business continuity, but it plays a critical role in hiring top talent for your organization and its continued growth and success. As the world of work continues to shift and adjust with the pandemic, the digital transformation journey has become integral to an organization’s success. While it may be a big first step for some, digital transformation is a continuous journey for companies as the need for technologies and the tools themselves are constantly changing.
The pandemic has demonstrated that our world and workplace can change in an instant. As an organization looking to begin your digital transformation or accelerate the journey, it is important to do so strategically and with purpose. An important piece in the journey is for businesses to ensure high availability of their operations in the event of unplanned downtime such as a system failure, security breach, human error or natural disaster. While no organization aims for any of these to happen, it is critical to prepare for the possibility to ensure that if one does occur you have a plan in place to guide your recovery.
How CDW Can Help
At CDW Canada, our senior consultants work with organizations to ensure the continuance and availability of day to day operations, especially during significant business disruptions. Our team partners with organizations to better understand their business requirements, and underpinning technology enablers to design a tailored program that aligns to the ISO 22301/27301 and NIST 800-34 standards.
Key elements of this process include a review of existing technologies, people, processes and procedures and conducting a fulsome business impact analysis to assess impacts and exposure and identify the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). Our team of experts then use the business impact analysis results to identify risks against the critical operational processes.
Working hand in hand with organizations, comprehensive continuity and recovery strategies are developed and detailed within a holistic business continuity plan. Tabletop testing is also leveraged to discuss stakeholder roles and responsibilities in preparation for an extended outage or catastrophic event and guide organizations through different scenarios. The CDW team provides a fulsome summary report detailing high-level findings and recommendations.
Our seasoned and certified experts leverage years of successful experience across several industries to develop and implement effective and sustainable business continuity management program. If you have any questions about your organization’s digital transformation journey or its disaster preparation posture, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at 800.972.3922 or visit cdw.ca/solutions to learn more.
