MindShare: Prepare Your Business for Storm-Related Outages

Storm season can mean severe weather conditions in Pittsburgh, whether it’s snowfall, heavy rains, high winds, or a combination thereof. And for business owners, it’s critical to be prepared. Proactively identifying and working with partners that are experienced in this space, like Comcast Business, and planning for the potential impacts of inclement weather can help to protect businesses from adverse effects – like disruptions in productivity, interruptions to the customer experience, and overall security.

As integral as technology is to businesses today, the right combination of services, equipment, and expert support is crucial following a storm or inclement weather. This is especially true now that many people are working from anywhere – like home, a coffee shop, or even on the other side of town. For companies in the Pittsburgh area, considering the following can help mitigate impacts of the toughest of weather.

Plan for power outages

With employees working remotely or on a hybrid schedule, and relying on their own Internet and power, it can be harder to ensure a strong, stable network connection compared to just one office building. Since it isn’t possible to provide every remote employee with a personal generator, a more realistic solution to keeping hard drives and digital files safe is to provide an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

A UPS automatically kicks on when the main power is off. Although a UPS can’t power systems for long, it will buy employees time to save their work and properly shut down devices.

With power outages comes Internet outages

An Internet connection can be as important as electricity for many business operations and devices. Services like Comcast Business Connection Pro provide a 4G LTE backup router that takes over if a business’ main Internet service provider fails.

And, when the Internet is out, Comcast Business Mobile allows employees to connect to a 5G network or one of the millions of secure Comcast Business WiFi hotspots nationwide. Keeping a business’ phone network mobile allows businesses and customers to connect throughout a storm.

Rely on the cloud for saving information

There are problematic storm clouds, and then there are helpful, business-supporting clouds. Using a cloud-based ecosystem that automatically backs up business files on a frequent basis can help prevent a loss of data if something happens to a business’ hard drive.

Comcast Business services, like Automated Attendants and voicemail features, are hosted in the cloud, which means they are more likely to continue to work during an outage. Relying on the cloud can help businesses to continue to operate even in the midst of inclement weather.

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Put a reliable cyber defense plan in place

An outage is a prime opportunity for a cyber-attack. Having security solutions in-place are imperative year-round, but especially when businesses are vulnerable during storm season. A proper cyber defense strategy should include protection against malware and viruses, as well as a back-up system. Keep Web browsers, firmware, and security applications up to date to ensure the best defense against malware and viruses. And don’t forget about secure firewalls to protect against potential hackers.

Comcast Business offers managed services for security as well. Unified Threat Management (UTM) can be used to boost functionality from a single device, eliminating the need for multiple systems, and enhancing monitoring with greater visibility and computing resources. This allows business owners to manage security systems across multiple locations from one mobile device, eliminating the need to travel to each location during a storm.

Also consider additional cybersecurity services, like Comcast Business SecurityEdge, which covers connected devices without requiring software installations on each device. The cloud-based solution updates Internet domain threats every 10 minutes, so companies can be protected from the latest threats.

Interested in learning more about how Comcast Business can help businesses across the Pittsburgh area stay connected? Visit https://business.comcast.com/storm-ready to learn more.