Living and working in North Queensland means cyclones and severe storms are not exactly a surprise.
Most businesses know to secure loose items, check insurance and make sure staff know what is happening. But there is another question worth asking before cyclone season:
If the power went out at your office right now, what would actually stop working?
For many businesses, the answer is more than just the computers. Internet, phones, Wi-Fi, EFTPOS, security cameras, cloud systems and access to business data can all depend on a surprisingly small amount of equipment staying online.
The best time to work that out is before the weather arrives.
Start with the comms cupboard
Your internet connection might still be available outside the building, but that does not mean your office can use it. Your NBN equipment, router, firewall, network switches and Wi-Fi all require power.
Once that equipment stops, most of the office effectively becomes disconnected.
A UPS can keep critical network equipment running through short interruptions and give equipment time to shut down properly during a longer outage. But a UPS is not an unlimited power source.
The useful question is not simply “Do we have a UPS?” It is: what is connected to it, how long will it actually run, and has anyone tested it recently?
What if the internet goes down as well?
Keeping your router powered does not help much if the fixed internet service itself is unavailable.
For businesses that need to remain connected, a second path can make a big difference. That might be 4G/5G backup, another fixed service or Starlink, depending on the location and how important connectivity is to the business.
The backup does not necessarily need to run everything exactly as normal. It may just need to keep the important things operating — email, cloud applications, EFTPOS, remote access and communications.
Queensland’s business cyclone guidance recommends planning for loss of power, communications, access and normal operations rather than assuming services will remain available.
What happens to your business phones?
This is one that catches people out. Modern business phone systems generally depend on internet and power. If the office goes offline, the desk phones may go with it.
That does not necessarily mean your business number has to stop working.
A hosted phone system can be designed so calls are redirected away from the affected office — for example to staff mobiles, another location or another answering point. Customers can continue calling the same number even if nobody can physically get into the office.
Q10 Voice can form part of that approach, while mobile connectivity can also provide a backup path for calls and internet access.
It is worth remembering that mobile networks can fail or become congested too. Resilience is about having options rather than simply moving the dependency from one service to another.
Cloud systems help — but you still need a way to reach them
Moving systems into Microsoft 365 or other cloud services removes a lot of dependence on a server sitting inside the office. That is useful during a disaster.
But putting everything in the cloud does not automatically create a business continuity plan. Staff still need a working device, power, an internet connection, their account and authentication methods, and somewhere safe to work.
Your backups also need to exist independently of the equipment affected by the event. That is one reason backup and recovery should be considered separately from simply storing data in the cloud.
Test it before cyclone season
You do not need a 60-page disaster recovery document to find the obvious gaps. Try asking a few simple questions:
The office has no power. Can customers still call us?
The NBN is down. Can the business still get online?
Nobody can get into the building. Can staff work somewhere else?
If the main equipment is damaged, is our data somewhere else?
Does anyone actually know how the backup systems work?
And probably the most important one: when was the last time we tested any of this?
You do not need everything to stay online
For many small businesses, the goal is not to run at 100% through a cyclone. It is to work out which few things matter most.
Maybe customers need to be able to call you. Maybe staff need email and the job management system. Maybe EFTPOS needs to work. Maybe you simply need reliable access to your records so the business can restart somewhere else.
Once you know that, you can design the internet, phones, power backup and cloud systems around those priorities.
Q10 Systems helps businesses across Townsville, Cairns and North Queensland plan for this as part of their wider IT environment — including managed IT, business internet, backup connectivity and Q10 Voice.
Rather than assuming your backup plan works, we can help work out what actually happens when the power, internet or office itself disappears.