Businesses today are very reliant upon having constant internet connectivity, particularly with many businesses starting to use cloud based services. Lack of a connection can have detrimental effects on a business resulting in missed enquiries, lost orders and lack of productivity.
If your business relies on the internet it is a good idea to plan how your business would cope if your connection failed. Obviously, you’ll hope this never happens, particularly if you’ve chosen a good quality broadband supplier.
However even the best internet connections can fail and no one can predict damage to the cable that brings the connection in to your office – so here are a list of things you can think about if your connection fails:
- Make arrangements with a nearby business – If you share a building with another business, consider setting up a reciprocal arrangement to share internet connections. If yours fails, you can borrow theirs – and vice versa. Just make sure you get your connections from different providers so problems don’t affect you both.
- Pay for a backup broadband connection – Internet connections have come down in price considerably, so it may be worth while paying for a backup broadband connection with another supplier. This could be seen as an Insurance for your business.
- Mobile broadband connections – Although these arn’t as fast as regular broadband, if you are in an area with a good mobile phone signal then they can be a cost effective backup to get you back up online. Some business routers allow you to connect a broadband dongle directly to them so that if your regular broadband link goes down the mobile broadband automatically kicks in.
- Work Flexible – Why not go out and about? You can find free wireless internet in cafes, restaurants and pubs. Grab a coffee and log on – you’ll be surprised at how productive you can be.
- Have a backup office in place – Larger businesses have the money to have a backup office in place should the worst happen, however this is not cost effective and a little over the top for small businesses. You could however arrange to make use of some spare space that a fellow business owner has available.
Of course what ever happens you will inevitably suffer some loss of productivity however quickly you get back up and running, but at least if you have a plan in place you can get back to dealing with customer emails and gain access to any cloud computing services as soon as possible.