The 10D Voice blog: week of February 20
Why You Should be
Thinking About Business Disruptions
As the owner or manager of a growing business, your focus is
business development, not business disruption. But don’t let mistaken assumptions about
business continuity cloud your judgment.
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Most small and midsize businesses make the mistake of
assuming that (1) in the event of a disaster, they will still be able to limp
along and get their business going again and (2) it will cost them less to limp
along and clean up the mess later than to put a backup plan in place now.
In fact, if you experience a breakdown in your
communications infrastructure, you may not be able to limp along. Numerous
insurance companies and business continuity
specialists cite statistics suggesting that large numbers of SMEs who
are hit with a major disruption never fully recover and/or soon go out of
business.
In this posting, I will provide a basic explanation of
business continuity as it relates to your communications system. I also
recommend downloading the Avaya white paper, “Is your small business ready for
non-stop operations?” (https://www.avaya.com/usa/registration/is-your-small-business-ready-for-non-stop-operations/)
It’s packed with interesting advice and insight on the whole subject of keeping
your business in continuous operation, whether the problem is a storm, utility
outage, equipment failure, security breach or even having several of your top
employees felled by the flu.
Don’t take your
communications for granted
In the old days, if the power failed during a major storm or
disaster, there was a good chance you could still use the phone. That’s because
your phone system was powered by electrical current coming over analog lines from
the phone company’s central office. Because of that, you could always get dial
tone.
But today, many businesses use digital, not analog, lines. Also,
even if a business is using an analog line, the communications devices and
switches at the business may still require their own power. Cordless phones,
for example, need their own power source. If you connect ANY device that needs
its own power, you introduce a point of failure so that when power is lost to
the switch, connected telephones no longer receive a dial tone.
But there is a way around this—it’s part of the business
continuity capabilities of Avaya IP Office. The Avaya White Paper explains it in detail, but
here’s the essence: if you connect an easily acquired Phone 8 expansion card, affixed
with a Daughter (trunk) card, you get eight ports for use with analog
telephones. Using the card, the analog trunk gets connected directly to the
phone—the switch is bypassed. Whether you have power or not, you can be up and
running.
A power outage is just one possible scenario of business
disruption—and it’s also just one way that Avaya IP Office is designed to keep
your operations going. Other features of
this system designed to keep you in business include:
Teleworker Solution:
Get complete communications from another location by connecting via an IP desk
phone over a virtual private network (VPN) or via a laptop using the one-X® Portal. This is a great option
for when employees cannot get into the office for any reason.
Multi-site Network:
If you have multiple offices and one goes down, you can still keep all your
communications up and running by using the Small Community Network capability,
which is a standard feature of IP Office. Using IP links, you can connect a
network of branch offices and ensure that extensions and features stay up and
running at all of them. You can even designate which locations are “back-ups” for
others, so the level of resiliency can be quite robust.
Providing this kind of support for small and midsize
businesses is a key reason why Avaya IP Office has become a top choice and why Avaya
is No. 1 worldwide in telephony solutions in the small and midsize market.
Call 10D Telecom at (541) 243-410D (4103)
www.10dvoice.com
