24/09/2026
Your systems are down. How quickly can your organisation recover?
Imagine that your organisation's core IT systems suddenly become unavailable.
Customer transactions cannot be processed.
Employees cannot access critical applications.
Business operations are interrupted.
Your IT team is working to restore services.
But senior management asks a simple question:
“When will we be back online?”
Can your organisation provide a reliable answer?
IT Disaster Recovery (IT DR) is not simply about having backup systems or storing copies of critical data. It requires a coordinated approach to restoring technology services that support critical business operations.
An effective IT DR programme should address:
✅ Recovery Time Objective (RTO) — How quickly must a system or application be restored?
✅ Recovery Point Objective (RPO) — How much data loss, measured in time, is acceptable?
✅ Recovery strategies — What arrangements will enable restoration of critical infrastructure and applications?
✅ Dependencies — Which networks, databases, cloud platforms and external providers are required?
✅ Testing — Have recovery procedures been validated under realistic disruption conditions?
As organisations increasingly adopt cloud services and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), IT DR responsibilities also become more complex.
A service provider may restore its platform, but the organisation must still determine whether its business operations, data and dependent services can resume.
Having a disaster recovery plan is important. Demonstrating that it works is equally important.
💬 When was the last time your organisation tested the recovery of a critical application against its defined RTO and RPO?
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📘 Develop practical IT Disaster Recovery capabilities through BCM Institute's upcoming professional training programmes.
