How to avoid digital disruption

Alex Garden shares three straightforward rules for eliminating stress and disruption when your business is reliant on digital commerce and communication.

It’s hard as a writer to know where we will be in the cycle of the Covid-19 pandemic when you read this. As I write, it seems very early. We’re infants taking those first stumbling steps into a new world.

However, there is one thing that is obvious in the industry I have worked in for more than 20 years: There will be increasing reliance on digital commerce and digital communications of all kinds.

In order to take advantage of this increasing reliance and not be burnt by it I have three fairly straightforward rules that have evolved from past experiences. They are:

1. Always have backups.

Early on in my company NetInsites’ history our ISP provider decided to physically move the server to another data centre – it was very early days! Cue the inability to get the server up and running again, and nights with no sleep while customers’ sites were transferred to another server. During that time, all our customers’ sites were down until they were bought back up one at a time.

Nowadays we make sure all websites are backed up offsite every day and we have 24/7 access to those files. As well, all our other business files are in Dropbox which means we can access those files from anywhere and we know that even if our office was burnt out or burgled, our business would only be slightly affected.

If your website is now more important and most of your documents are digital, you should have a disaster plan. If you don’t know what would happen should your web developer or host company disappear or your server get destroyed, you should be asking questions.

2. Host in New Zealand.
We used to host some of our customers’ sites overseas, generally the United States. What we found was, even though they were far cheaper and advertised 24/7 service, they only had a skeleton staff during New Zealand’s working hours. It meant the service wasn’t necessarily great when you could get a response.

Also, because the New Zealand time zone was out of US business hours, guess when all the maintenance and downtime took place?

Another key reason for not hosting overseas is that your website and/or files are in another legal jurisdiction, so if there are any legal issues then you are bound by that country’s legal system and processes. I know I would rather be dealing with the New Zealand government and local lawyers than American ones. If you’re not sure where your host is based, ask the question.

3. Develop locally.
As well as 1 and 2 above, treat web development and associated IT services like other services you contract. Deal with people you meet or are recommended to and who you can look in the eye (even via Zoom at minimum) and discuss their service and any issues.
We’ve used overseas contractors at times in the past, and while it can be cheaper, there is the extra risk of misunderstandings due to culture, language and distance.

We now use local people wherever possible, even if it is a bit more expensive. Any extra profit from using overseas contractors is often swallowed up by extra administration and the time needed to specify everything very precisely.

The fact you’re helping the local economy is worth factoring in as well.

These are three very straightforward rules, but if I was starting business again I think abiding by them from the start would have saved us plenty of time, money and stress. It reminds me of a quote by John Wyndham from The Day of the Triffids.

“It must be, I thought, one of the race’s most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that ‘it can’t happen here’ – that one’s own time and place is beyond cataclysm.”

Alex Garden is ‘NetGuru’ at NetInsites, specialists in web design and general web strategy.