[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you have a battle box for your enterprise, then it probably contains vital information such as employee and major supplier contact details, the most important business contracts, system codes for accessing or restarting critical applications, and so on.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2817″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” image_hovers=”false” lazy_loading=”true”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row margin_top=”-20px”][vc_column][vc_column_text]The box itself is likely to be a robust container that can stand up to heat and pressure, and is waterproof, but also light enough to be grabbed in a hurry and taken with you to an alternate place of work.
The soundness of the principle is undeniable: these essential elements are what keep your business running. Yet in today’s digital business age, it may be time for the battle box to go virtual as well.
Where Did This Come From?
The original Battle Box was anything but virtual. It was a bunker built 30 feet under the hill of Fort Canning in the central area of Singapore, used in the Second World War. It had concrete walls that were three feet thick, and included a telephone exchange connected to all military switchboards and many civilian switchboards in Malaya, operations rooms and sleeping quarters.
In this case, business continuity was in fact military resilience. Today’s physical battle boxes are mobile, although their purpose is still to ensure an organisation stays operational.
Safe It Storage
A virtual battle box is also there to prevent business disruption. However, instead of carting physical papers around, the originals are stored in a safe location (bank deposit box, for example), and high quality digital scans are used instead. Employee and major supplier details are not held as paper lists, but as files in safe IT storage locations, such as secure cloud servers.
The virtual battle box can be distributed and replicated in resilient cloud resources, although accessible at one virtual address. In the rare event that you need to produce the signed originals, you’ll need to get to your deposit box, but for everyday operations, consulting digital copies will be sufficient. As more and more business is done in the cloud, it makes sense to put the battle box there as well.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]