Most of us can’t imagine conducting day-to-day business without email. Our dependence has only increased because of smart devices that keep us connected to our email 24/7.
How would your business operate if suddenly, unexpectedly, no one had access to their email?
More importantly, what would happen if – while that email outage was taking place – all incoming emails were irretrievably lost? Would you miss business opportunities? Could your lack of access make prospects, customers and vendors feel like you are ignoring them, don’t care about their needs (or worse)? Do you fully understand all regulatory implications that may apply to missed communications?
Even when your email system is down, contacts continue to send email messages not knowing the messages may not be received (and might be lost forever). They assume you got them, will act on them and respond appropriately. Unfortunately, if your email system is down you don’t know who sent you messages. And when email is finally restored, those messages may have disappeared, never to be seen again. Senders may not know you never got them, and you may never know they were sent.
Have you asked about – and gained an understanding of – what your organization is prepared to do in the event of an email disruption? Your organization may rely on other critical, high tier applications. Email recovery may be on a DR back burner – or never considered. Has your organization invested in a high availability email solution that provides continuous accessibility from anywhere, at any time? Do you know the email system RTO (Recovery Time Objective)? Just as importantly, do you know the RPO (Recovery Point Objective) – how many email transactions might be lost during the recovery?
If your answer to any of those questions is “I don’t know”, ask. Many options are available for email continuity, backup and recovery. None of them are free. Have you included email in your BIA data? What is the potential cost to the organization if email is not available? Find out. And don’t discount the impact of an inoperative email system on your Customers and your image.
If you understand the potential impacts you’ll be better able to determine if your present state of email recovery is sufficient – or if you need to make the case for a higher availability email continuity option or solution.
If you haven’t asked the right questions, your BCP’s may be based on assumptions. Don’t let faulty assumptions doom your recoverability.
