If there’s one thing that EU-based companies are talking about nowadays (besides AI, of course), it’s NIS2. The Network and Information Security Directive 2 is here to stay, and there are a lot of consequences when it comes to cybersecurity. If you’re operating in one of the 18 sectors determined as critical, you’ll have to invest in risk management, incident response, and perhaps most importantly: business continuity.
Let’s focus on that last element. You might have advanced firewalls and intrusion detection in place, along with a disaster recovery plan, but have you really thought about everything? There is one huge single point of failure you might not be considering: Microsoft 365. You probably rely on it for everything from email to sensitive customer documents, so what happens when it goes down?
Why Microsoft 365 outages matter more than you think
You might assume that platforms like Microsoft 365 are (nearly) invincible. Which makes sense: Microsoft invests heavily in infrastructure and reliability. Uptime is generally excellent, and for most everyday purposes, the platform feels consistently available.
The reality is that cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated, and outages, whether due to technical glitches or malicious actors, do happen. And we’re not just talking about the bakery around the corner either. If you’re living in or near Belgium, you may have heard about the massive Microsoft 365 outage faced by Digipolis. Internationally, there are plenty of recent examples to be found as well.
When your entire organization runs on Microsoft 365, downtime isn’t just an inconvenience.
- Your email systems will become unavailable, making both internal and external communication a lot more difficult… and that includes your crisis communication!
- Your teams will lose access to crucial documents and collaboration tools, which means that productivity (and your core business) will grind to a halt.
- Most importantly, and the reason you’re probably reading this: unplanned downtime directly undermines your ability to meet cybersecurity regulations like NIS2.
And what happens while you’re waiting for your systems to become available again? Either you don’t get any work done, or your employees start using personal emails and applications like WhatsApp to deal with sensitive customer information. Less than ideal, and potentially dangerous. Let’s have a look at a better solution.
Google Workspace: your independent business continuity lifeline
So, what is that better solution? It’s time to talk about Google Workspace.
No, we’re not suggesting you ditch Microsoft 365 since it’s probably deeply embedded in your daily operations. Instead, think of Google Workspace as your strategically designed plan B: a separate, independent ecosystem ready to jump into action when (not if!) your primary Microsoft 365 environment goes down.
The key advantage here is technology diversification. By splitting critical communication and collaboration across distinct platforms, you eliminate a dangerous single point of failure and replace it with a NIS2-compliant digital lifeboat.
How can we help you with enterprise-grade business continuity?
Okay, so Google Workspace is clearly your best bet for a plan B. But how do you actually make it your Plan B? That’s where we come in.
One thing that we want to make clear from the start is that we’re not just here to throw licenses at you. Business continuity is different for every organization, although NIS2 has certainly moved the bar up quite a bit.
To determine where you’re at and what you need, we always start with an intake meeting. Then, we configure your setup by choosing from our three tiers of business continuity: Lean, Medium and Full. Of course, we also offer you the possibility to mix and match as needed.
- Lean gives you a separate Google Workspace environment and emergency accounts for external crisis communication. Better than nothing, but it will not meet NIS2 compliance standards.
- With Medium, you get a prepped Google Workspace environment for internal and external crisis comms, essential user account sync, and hot-standby for your core crisis team. Basically, a cost-effective (and NIS2-compliant!) practical sweet spot.
- Full is, well, the full package: fully synchronized, hot-standby Google Workspace environment with dual mail delivery, file sync, and SSO failover. The ultimate business continuity insurance for mission-critical organizations that can’t afford any downtime.
The one insurance you can’t afford to miss
To conclude, we’d like to put it in the words of one of our customers: “we already have insurances for everything, so it’s surprising that we didn’t think of an insurance for something to central to what we do.”
Well, we couldn’t agree more. Just think about it: if there’s a fire, you don’t want to start shopping around for an extinguisher and learn how to use it first. You want it next to you and ready to go.
Don’t wait for the next outage to expose your vulnerability. Contact us today, and let’s build a solution that turns a blind spot into a strategic advantage.
