Many companies can keep themselves "ahead of the game" with a formal and reliable disaster recovery plan, according to an American computing writer.

Keith Farrell of bMighty, a resource for small and medium-sized businesses, stated that if a company does not know how it will restore systems once a disabling situation takes hold of the office or workplace, it could result in serious losses to the company, particularly financially.

The key to an effective disaster recovery plan, he states, is to keep everyone in the loop of how it is operated, taking into account which equipment will be used, how it will be accessed to restore any data and how employees will be placed to ensure it all goes to plan.

Mr Farrell ended: "The point of a disaster recovery plan is the recovery, something made far more difficult if you and your team can't put your hands on the plan that shows how the recovery will be accomplished."

Business Link, a government resource, tips disaster recovery as one of the most important necessities in the office, stating that with the increasing reliance on computer systems, organisations are now more prone to anything from accidental loss of data to forms of sabotage.

New research from Connect found that, on average, it takes businesses that use backup tapes take 11.6 hours to retrieve and restore files. Connect is now recommending that SMEs switch to www.connect.co.uk/services/online_backup.