How Business Continuity Management Minimizes Threats for RIAs

There have been a lot of news headlines about companies that experience data loss due to natural disasters, equipment failure, employee error, and malicious interference. It all emphasizes the importance of having good business continuity management in place.

A business continuity plan is a detailed strategy that enables Los Angeles RIAs to resume normal operations after network downtime or data loss. When managed properly, a good plan minimizes threats while remaining scalable, flexible, and capable of adapting as business needs change.

Below is a list of the ways that proper business continuity management can help Los Angeles RIAs navigate common threats.

Important Business Functions

Any company that deals with a customer’s financial data is going to have major problems if services suddenly go offline. Installing generators in the facility where the firm’s servers are hosted will ensure that everything remains functional and accessible even during severe power outages.

Support Remote Operation

Fires or floods can prevent staff from getting to the main office. Remote access support keeps the company operational by enabling RIAs to access applications and resources from an outlying location. They will be able to communicate with clients, access portfolios, and, in general, keep the business going until return to the office is possible.

Protecting Assets

A critical part of business continuity management is identifying a company’s mission-critical assets and making sure that they are stored in secure locations. In the case of data, leading-edge threat prevention software (firewalls, antivirus) and storing backups in a secondary location minimizes the risk of data loss.

Reduced Downtime

Every hour that a company’s resources are inaccessible, money is lost. A business continuity plan that covers all possible contingencies will restore operations more quickly and even prevent them from going offline in the first place.

Staying in Business

Larger events could pull a business offline for an extended period. For Los Angeles RIAs, that means significant revenue losses and eroded customer trust. Ultimately, business continuity management can prevent such a game-changing setback.

Bottom Line

Business continuity management is critical at many levels, and will ensure that threats are minimized, and downtime reduced even during smaller events, such as power or hardware failures. In larger events, such as earthquakes or floods, a firm’s business continuity plan could mean the difference between whether the firm remains or if it becomes one of those companies that can’t recoup its losses.

Has your firm’s business continuity management enabled it to minimize both internal and external threats? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments box below.

And to follow-through on the tips introduced in this short article, be sure to download your free guide, Investing in High Net Worth Clients: The LA Investment Advisor's Guide to Using Technology to Manage and Grow Your Firm.