Load shedding is impacting South African businesses and is scheduled to go on for the next few weeks.
According to Heino Gevers, security specialist at Mimecast, power outages have a substantial impact on business communications by reducing end-users' uptime and their ability to access and process information.
"Many employees will seek alternative means to continue to communicate; using personal drop boxes and personal e-mail which can place a business at incredible risk as it is unable to control or screen information transactions," notes Gevers.
"Beyond e-mail, load-shedding also has an impact on end-user productivity - whether it's an increase in traffic congestion getting into the office, general frustration from being unable to operate electrical devices, or not being able to access important sources of information."
He notes that it is important that organisations develop and regularly test a disaster recovery strategy, which includes cloud services as a means of accessing e-mail and information. Cloud services support mobility and ensure that there is business continuity, regardless of infrastructural challenges, like power outages.
"The adoption of e-mail continuity solutions is certainly increasing, but many organisations opt for cost-cutting alternatives which do not provide adequate support for the business during a continuity event," says Gevers.
"Unfortunately, instead of developing an all-inclusive disaster recovery strategy, some organisations create high availability within their core services and exclude their peripheral services. Such exclusive behaviour can lead to non-compliance in terms of how data is processed and stored in a continuity event."
To Gevers, though the use of other communication platforms is increasing, e-mail is still a critical business application as it is the only medium that enables an organisation to enforce governing rules (like data leak prevention, retention policies and disclaimer management) to ensure regulatory compliance.
"Organisations are investing more when it comes to e-mail continuity because any downtime for large organisations can be incredibly costly. However, with e-mail being used as the primary channel for communication in business today, SMEs too are realising the value in e-mail continuity and adopting cloud e-mail services to support their infrastructural limitations."
Gevers believes that as blackouts affect all businesses alike, it is imperative that organisations provide alternative platforms for both their users and their clients to utilise in times of continuity - enabling both parties to access and share information while interacting via e-mail.
He explains that organisations can implement a platform which can be accessed by the client using any Internet connection. All communications can then take place within this secure platform and information can be shared as usual. Such a solution not only enhances the mobility of both the employees and their clients, but is a more resilient alternative than regular e-mail interactions which sit on separate platforms to each other.
For organisations to enhance and improve the overall productivity and efficiency of the end-user base during these dark times, Gevers notes that organisations need to ensure they have a cloud-based mobility strategy in place.
This strategy will not only allow all users to continue to communicate when they experience power outages, but will also reduce the organisation's pressure to create high availability within the infrastructure across all applications, he says.
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