Big corporations and Fortune 500 companies aren't the only ones that need disaster recovery plans. For small businesses, who typically have less leeway for weathering downtime, it becomes even more important to have a comprehensive plan. This will ensure those companies get back of their feet quickly without breaking their budget.

Here are four points to consider when developing a disaster recovery plan for small businesses:

• Pragmatism. Take a hard look at the current state of your company and ask yourself how long you can last without being able to conduct normal business. Design your plan around that, targeting critical systems first. Be realistic about your objectives and don't make promises to customers about service during downtime or recovery time that you can't keep. Work within your means and be honest with yourself and your customers. 
• Flexibility. It is sometimes tempting to opt for popular, but expensive solutions. Being flexible and considering alternatives ways of accomplishing the same goals will go a long way towards improving your company's bottom line. 
• Reach for the cloud. Cloud-based services are relatively new and inexpensive while offering faster and more flexible solutions for data backup. At the absolute minimum, SMBs can use this to sore critical data to help those services recover more quickly in the event of a disaster. Consider storing additional information in the cloud as costs permits. 
• More than just data.  While ensuring that your data and IT infrastructure is accounted for is an extremely important part of a disaster recovery plan, it shouldn't be the only part. There are many other things that go into developing a successful plan, including accounting for personnel and physical assets.

Ensure that your disaster recovery plan is all encompassing by contacting a disaster recovery consultant today.