For any customer-facing organisation, it makes sense to have a recovery plan in place should the worst happen – IT failures, power outages or, in extreme cases, fire and flood. However, statistics continue to highlight a worrying lack of focus among leading firms on the issue of business continuity.

The recent European Disaster Recovery Survey found that 74% of European companies are not confident they can fully recover systems or data in the event of an unforeseen disaster and that more than half of all organisations (54%) lost data or suffered systems downtime in the last 12 months. The implications of this downtime can often be catastrophic, both financially and in terms of customer confidence.

One company that can rest easy is Peterborough-based travel giant Thomas Cook. It has joined with leading East Midlands Business Continuity specialist NetSupport to ensure it has the required backup processes in place should it encounter an interruption in service.

A recent test day gave Thomas Cook the opportunity to put its plans through their paces. This involved staff from various departments at the Peterborough campus relocating to NetSupport’s nearby HQ where upon arrival their temporary working environment, including their IT systems, was ready and waiting.

As NetSupport’s Head of Business Continuity Services, Ravi Pathak, explains, test days form a vital part of any NetSupport recovery plan: “Plans always look good on paper but we like to ensure our customers can see they work in practice. We have invested heavily in our workplace recovery suites and state-of-the-art data-centres and it’s great to be able to show off our facilities during these test days. Our customers certainly gain great confidence from knowing that in the event of an incident they can rely on us to get them up and running without delay.”

To discuss your business continuity requirements contact Ravi Pathak.

Email continuity@netsupport-bc.co.uk or call 01778 382270.