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Countdown to the Cloud: A Comprehensive 30-Day Business Continuity Planning Guide for SMBs

Published: November 3, 2020

As with any key organizational initiative, putting a full business continuity plan in place for your business takes perseverance. Once you make the decision to do it, however, you’ll need to consider how to implement the critical operational components such as integrating a comprehensive cloud-based business continuity tech stack into your firm or small business.

Moving to the cloud can seem overwhelming at first, but if you keep the end goal in mind, it will be infinitely easier to be focused on the benefits you will gain by implementing cloud technologies and a business continuity workflow, while you are putting in the effort. For example:

  • The ability to keep generating revenue no matter what happens externally.
  • Enhanced security and safety for you and your clients.
  • Greater levels of efficiency and resiliency.
  • The foundation you need to scale your accounting practice/business more easily.
  • Peace of mind knowing that you and your staff have 24/7 access to all of your files whenever and wherever you need them.

I am sure you can start imagining the possibilities!

From my experience, this process is really a journey. Once you have a clearly defined and motivating “why” for implementing a business continuity plan, you will next need to identify the operational areas affected in the transition, along with the major pain points you may encounter during the process, and create a step-by-step strategy to accomplish your goals.

This guide will walk you through a 30-Day action plan for implementing the basic tactical elements necessary for achieving the benefits of your “whys” and give you a solid foundation for transforming your accounting firm. I’ve broken this plan down into daily action items because taking “small bites of the elephant” really is the most doable.

Consider devoting 30 minutes a day to getting your business continuity plan implemented. If you do this, you will make more progress in one month than you could spending several hours randomly working on bits and pieces of a strategy with no structure.

Some helpful advice as someone who has done the work: It’s important that both internal and external stakeholders understand the tools and know how to properly use them so that maximum efficiencies and security are delivered. You’ll need to consider the impact on your clients, employees, vendors, process, policies and procedures—then decide what is the best way to approach each of these areas.

One last tip before we dive into the list: If you already have something done that is the action item for a particular day, move on to the next task so you can climb into the cloud even faster!