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Whether caused by cyberattacks, system failures, or natural disasters, disruptions to your organization’s IT services can be devastating—and the longer it takes you to recover, the greater the impact. In today’s post, we’ll look at the services and expertise MHA can offer organizations interested in getting outside help to bolster their digital resilience.
[Related: The Science and Art of Writing an IT/DR Recovery Plan]
The High Cost of Wishful Thinking
From ransomware attacks to power outages to hardware and software issues, today’s organizations face a wide range of threats that can disrupt their critical operations, potentially at a high cost in terms of service interruptions, reputational damage, and lost data and revenue.
Many organizations gamble with their future by relying on inadequate, outdated, or untested IT disaster recovery (IT/DR) strategies and plans—or on no plan at all.
Many executives and even some resilience professionals display a fatalistic attitude to their IT systems. We often meet leaders who believe that, in a disruption, their organization’s fate will necessarily come down to a combination of luck and the IT team’s ability to improvise solutions on the fly. They may also believe the risk is so low, making a DR plan unnecessary.
Wishful and passive thinking of this kind can impose a steep cost on organizations and their stakeholders.
Modern IT/DR: Known Practices, Proven Results
Lack of continued review and update regarding the current state of the art of IT/DR strategies and capabilities is widespread.
There is nothing mysterious about modern IT/DR. We know what it takes to protect organizations’ systems, applications, and data. The field’s best practices are regularly put to the test and found to work.
For any organization that wants to replace “figuring it out” and hoping with proven solutions and validated recoverability, the means to do so are available, at least on the level of technology and expertise.
Organizations that are serious about improving their IT/DR position can rely on in-house expertise or potentially bring in outside help. Success can be achieved through both approaches (so can failure).
Companies seeking outside help to protect their IT assets have many qualified firms to choose from. In this post, I want to talk specifically about how MHA approaches this task.
Insde MHA: The Experience Behind the Guidance
MHA Consulting was founded some 25 years ago by Michael Herrera, our CEO. We provide business continuity and IT/DR consulting services to organizations in all sectors and of all sizes, from smaller companies and nonprofits to government agencies and educational institutions to members of the Fortune 500.
We are based in the Phoenix, Arizona, area but our consultants routinely travel to client engagements throughout the United States as well as in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Our consultants are IT professionals with senior leadership experience at leading corporations. Visit the Our Team page to learn more about the experience and knowledge we would bring to bear in helping your organization improve its practice of IT/DR.
Our Playbook for Recovery That Works
As I’ll explain in a moment, one of the pillars of our practice is that we tailor our services to our clients’ needs, industry, and culture. However, we do have a four-step playbook that we use as a starting point in our IT/DR engagements:
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Establishing Your Baseline
We begin with a Current State Assessment (CSA). This deep dive evaluates the maturity and capabilities of your existing IT/DR and business continuity programs. It helps us identify gaps, prioritize risks, and establish a foundation for improvement.
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Aligning Strategy and Tactics
With insights from the CSA, we develop tailored recovery strategies. We consider everything from your applications and infrastructure to your RTOs and recovery resources. We align technical solutions with business priorities, always aiming for practicality and usability.
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Bringing the Plan to Life
With your roadmap defined, we support implementation—whether it involves updating recovery documentation, deploying new backup solutions, or orchestrating data center migrations. Our goal is to ensure your DR environment is complete, efficient, and fully operational.
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Validating Readiness Through Testing
Testing is the true measure of preparedness. We guide organizations through realistic exercises, from scenario-based simulations to full-scale failover drills. These exercises don’t just verify plan accuracy—they improve staff capability, uncover blind spots, and build confidence.
Throughout each phase, our team works collaboratively with yours to ensure alignment with organizational goals and resource realities.
Beyond the Playbook: Tailoring Our Approach to Fit Your Needs
While MHA’s four-phase framework provides a structured foundation, our approach is never one-size-fits-all. We adapt our services to the size, culture, and capabilities of each organization, drawing on our decades of experience to strike the right balance between best practices and practical realities.
Rather than recommending purely technical solutions, we focus on what works to provide functional capabilities. That might mean building on tools and systems you already use, or aligning recovery strategies to the specific needs of each application or IT service. For example, a simple backup and restore process may be appropriate for a lower-priority system, but a critical application with a tight recovery window may demand a different solution altogether.
We also put strong emphasis on testing—not just to check boxes, but to build real preparedness. We work with clients to design meaningful, appropriate testing strategies that support capability development, training, and continuous improvement. These tailored efforts help ensure your recovery plan isn’t just written—it’s workable.
From Risk to Readiness
Disruptions to IT services can be devastating—but they don’t have to spell disaster. As we've outlined in this post, effective IT/DR planning is not about guesswork or luck; it’s about understanding your risks, building a plan that fits your organization, and testing that plan until you know it works.
At MHA, we help organizations move beyond improvisation toward readiness—through structured processes, real-world experience, and a commitment to practicality. If you're exploring ways to strengthen your digital resilience, we’d be glad to talk with you about how our team can support your goals.
Further Reading
Richard Long
Richard Long is one of MHA’s practice team leaders for Technology and Disaster Recovery related engagements. He has been responsible for the successful execution of MHA business continuity and disaster recovery engagements in industries such as Energy & Utilities, Government Services, Healthcare, Insurance, Risk Management, Travel & Entertainment, Consumer Products, and Education. Prior to joining MHA, Richard held Senior IT Director positions at PetSmart (NASDAQ: PETM) and Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT) and has been a senior leader across all disciplines of IT. He has successfully led international and domestic disaster recovery, technology assessment, crisis management and risk mitigation engagements.
